coops

And there are a growing number of examples of co-op platforms. Stocksy is a platform for stock photography owned by photographers. Savvy is a healthcare data co-op owned by patients. Ampled, a platform I co-founded, is like a Patreon for music– owned by its artists and workers.

Building a next generation of user owned and controlled tech cooperatives won’t be easy. Co-ops are more difficult to finance in the initial stages. There’s a lack of mentorship, legal difficulties in starting a co-operative and little information available on how to start one. The hegemonic startup ecosystem largely ignores ideas that don’t provid... See more

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?

As an example, Spotify doesn’t make decisions based on what is best for the livelihood and basic needs of musicians. It makes decisions based on which is best for their investors. This is demonstrated when Spotify, in their publicly available investor relations reporting, labels artist payouts as “cost of revenue”.