Platform Capitalism (Theory Redux)

by Nick Srnicek

This is a book on this contemporary moment and its avatars in emerging technologies: platforms, big data, additive manufacturing, advanced robotics, machine learning, and the internet of things.

the growth in digital advertising is expected to slow significantly, from an annual 14.7 per cent between 2009 and 2014 to 9.5 per cent from 2014 to 2019.56

If advertising declines – through some combination of economic crisis, ad blocking, and regulation – what will these platforms do? On the one hand, such a decline could accelerate the tendency

some form (rents, subscriptions, fees, micro-payments, etc.). There could be a move to the provision of essential platforms for other areas – a cut of every financial transaction, a licence fee for automakers to use Google’s driverless platforms, a rent collected for every business that uses Google’s cloud services.

On this option, rent is extracted from the use of a service and, given the monopoly position of these platforms, alternatives remain out of reach.

In the end, it appears that platform capitalism has inbuilt tendencies to move towards extracting rents by providing services (in the form of cloud platforms, infrastructural platforms, or product platforms).

The state, by contrast, has the power to control platforms.

coordinated action on tax avoidance can draw capital back into public hands.

Rather than just regulating corporate platforms, efforts could be made to create public platforms – platforms owned and controlled by the people.

investing the state’s vast resources into the technology necessary to support these platforms and offering them as public utilities.

But any efforts to transform our condition must take the existence of platforms into account. Having a proper understanding of the current conjuncture is essential to creating strategies and tactics adequate to our moment. While