This new model takes what we have learned from the Aggregation Era and finds a way to blend it with the independence enjoyed by the “sovereign writer”—or, to be appropriately expansive, let’s call it “sovereign creator.” It is, I believe, the natural model of the internet, taking advantage of the web’s massive scale and interconnectivity and... See more

The ownership economy thesis is that value in past web platforms — Wikipedia, YouTube, Twitter, Peer-to-peer networks/marketplaces, etc — is generated by users who never retain any of it. Users contribute value, but they don’t capture it.

Through collective ownership of tech platforms, we can more equitably distribute economic rewards, and allow workers and users to capture the value they create, instead of it being extracted from them. This is particularly true of platforms with user generated content. Let’s remember to ask: Who is generating the value? Who is capturing it?