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Platform Cooperatives Like Stocksy Have A Purpose Uber And Airbnb Never Will
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Forbes
Posted: January 8th, 2017
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danpontefract/2016/10/01/platfor...
You are undoubtedly familiar with so-called sharing economy titans such as Uber and Airbnb. Both companies are wreaking havoc on existing business models. But there is a problem. These are not truly sharing economy companies. For the record, Im with Harvard Business Review authors Giana M. Eckhardt and Fleura Bardhi who made a strong case against using the term sharing economy when it comes to firms like Uber and Airbnb. The authors suggested these sorts of businesses - where products and services are traded on the basis of access rather than ownership, when trade is done temporarily and not permanently - ought to be referred to as the access economy. While there isnt anything fundamentally wrong with companies like Uber or Airbnb ... they are not examples of organizations who are truly sharing. [Each company] extracts money from its partners and reinvests the profit in itself, not those who are its laborers. Which brings me to ... the business model of a Platform Cooperative. In its simplest form, a Platform Cooperative is defined as workerowned cooperatives designing their own apps-based platforms, fostering truly peer-to-peer ways of providing services and things. Put differently, those doing the work are owners and are both compensated for such effort and regarded as members of the greater team. A Platform Cooperative is not in it to extract money from its labourers through the rental of talent, service or even capital. Its business model is not about renting access.
Note: Read a great article describing 11 "platform cooperatives" which create a real sharing economy.
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