Rise of Platform Imperialism in the Networked Korean Society: a Critical Analysis of the Corporate Sphere

Home , Cyworld, Daum (web portal), Googlebot, Line Corporation, Naver Corporation

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Rise of Platform Imperialism in the Networked Korean Society: A Critical Analysis of the Corporate Sphere

Dal Yong Jin Associate professor at the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada yongjin23@gmail.com

Abstract

By employing political economy as an analytical framework, focusing on power relations between global forces and local forces in the realm of digital platforms, this study aims to develop a critical analysis of Korea’s platform technologies. It first identifies the major characteristics that signal the growth of digital platforms as a corporate sphere in which their operation is greatly defined by market forces. Then, it analyzes the nature of the development of local digital platforms in order to determine whether locally made digital platforms have controlled their own market and expanded in global markets. Finally, it investigates the ways in which US-based digital platforms have dominated or influenced the local market, constructing a new form of imperialism, which this article calls ‘platform imperialism’. For this reason, this study not only examines hardware architecture but also pays close attention to the commercial and cultural values embedded in digital platforms.

Keywords corporate sphere – critical political economy – digital media – digital platform – platform imperialism

Introduction

In the early twenty-first century, digital platforms have become some of the most significant digital technologies and cultures. Digital platforms – such as

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��7 | doi 10.1163/22142312-12340078Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 06:03:13AM via free access 210 Jin search engines (e.g. Google), social network sites (SNSs; e.g. Facebook), on- demand internet streaming media (e.g. Netflix), and smartphones and their operating systems (e.g. Android and iOS) – are swiftly becoming ubiquitous in everyday life, and they are deeply woven into our daily activities, politically, culturally, and technologically. In particular, digital platforms are symbols of economic growth in many parts of the world, and digital platforms as the primary drivers of modern capitalism have played a major role in accumulating capital in the hands of a few platform designers and owners. Digital platforms tend to be US platforms, such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter (Fuchs 2015). However, because of the significant role of digital platforms in both the digital economy and culture, several non-Western countries, such as South Korea and China, have developed their own digital platforms. Korea has especially advanced digital platforms, including smartphones (e.g. Samsung Galaxy), internet portals (e.g. Naver and Daum, now called Kakao), instant mobile messengers (e.g. Kakao Talk and LINE), and operating systems (e.g. Tizen). The increasing roles of these platforms are signals of Korea’s transformation, which emphasizes digital platforms as new driving forces in the realm of information and communication technology (ICT).1 Therefore, several previous works (Kim et al. 2015; Park et al. 2014) written in the local context argue that local platforms such as Naver and Kakao provide opportunities for Korea to challenge American hegemony in the domestic market.2 By employing political economy as an analytical framework and focusing on power relations between global forces and local forces in the realm of digital platforms, this study aims to develop a critical analysis of Korea’s platform technologies. It first identifies the major characteristics that signal the growth of digital platforms as a corporate sphere in which their operation is greatly defined by market forces (van Dijck 2013). Then, it analyzes the nature of the development of local digital platforms in order to determine whether locally made digital platforms have controlled their own market and, additionally, expanded in the global markets. Finally, given the remarkable growth of several key digital platforms, it dis- cusses whether US-based digital platforms have continued to dominate or influence the local market, constructing a new form of imperialism, which this

1 Several scholars in Korea previously analyzed Naver and Daum (now called Kakao), and they focus primarily on business models, economic impacts, and internal organization (Han 2010; Kim et al. 2015; Park et al. 2007, 2014). 2 Chinese platforms, including Baidu, QQ, and Weibo, have also become national leaders, com- peting with US-based platforms, such as Google and Facebook (see Fuchs 2015).

Asiascape: DigitalDownloaded Asia from 4 Brill.com10/01/2021 (2017) 209-232 06:03:13AM via free access A Critical Analysis Of The Corporate Sphere 211 article calls ‘platform imperialism’, in the Korean context. The term, as defined by the author elsewhere, refers to ‘an asymmetrical relationship of interdepen- dence in platform technologies and political culture between the West, primarily the U.S., and many developing countries, including two great powers – both nation-states and transnational corporations’ (Jin 2015a: 12). For this reason, it not only examines hardware architecture but also pays close attention to the commercial and cultural values embedded in digital platforms.

Understanding Platform Imperialism

The digital platform has emerged as a major domain in digital media studies in the early twenty-first century (Bogost & Montfort 2009), as platform technologies have rapidly become part of our networked society. Previous works em- phasized platforms as either hardware or software. Ballon and van Heesvelde (2011: 703) argue that the platform is ‘a hardware configuration, an operating system, a software framework or any other common entity on which a number of associated components or services run’. In their case study of the Nintento Wii as a platform, Jones and Thiruvathukal (2012) also primarily analyze the mechanics of the Wii hardware, such as the console itself, the iconic Wii re- mote, its controller, and Nintendo’s distribution system. Meanwhile, Hands (2013: 3) claims, ‘a platform is, in its most general sense, a software framework running on the world wide web or Internet, in the forms of social media interfaces, apps, or most commonly “Web 2.0” portals that gather users in interfaces with each other and with the Web and Internet itself’. As these previous works indicate, ‘a focus on technical rigor and the material architecture of computing technologies is a hallmark’ of digital platforms (Leorke 2012: 261). Most of all, several scholars (Gillespie 2010; Mansell 2015) consider platforms intermediaries. Gillespie (2010: 349) defines platforms as ‘the online services of content intermediaries’. Gillespie (forthcoming) identifies platforms as a delivery system:

sites and services that host public expression, store it on and serve it up from the cloud, organize access to it through search and recommenda- tion, or install it onto mobile devices. This includes Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Google+, Instagram, and Snapchat … but also Google Search and Bing, Apple App Store and Google Play.… What unites them all is their central offer: to host and organize user content for public circulation, without having produced or commissioned it. They don’t make the content, but they make important choices about that content:

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what they will distribute and to whom, how they will connect users and broker their interactions, and what they will refuse.

Unlike Gillespie, who mostly considers digital platforms the business of information delivery, van Dijck (2013: 29) has decided that the platform is a media- tor, rather than an intermediary, because it shapes the performance of social acts, instead of merely facilitating them.

technically speaking, platforms are the providers of software, (some- times) hardware, and services that help code social activities into a computational architecture; they process (meta) data through algorithms and formatted protocols before presenting their interpreted logic in the form of user-friendly interfaces with default settings that reflect the platform owner’s strategic choices.

What van Dijck emphasizes is that platforms play a significant role in influenc- ing our daily lives as mediators. Because I critically view digital platforms as mediators instead of intermediaries, I believe that the political economy of digital platforms needs to identify the explicit amalgamations of several key elements, such as the technological, economic, and cultural dimensions of platforms (Jin 2015a). These three aspects together provide fundamental characteristics that demonstrate whether US-based platforms have dominated the local markets in the midst of the emergence of locally made digital platforms. To begin with, platforms can be understood through their computational meaning (Bodle 2010), which is an infrastructure that supports the design and use of any applications. As several scholars (Ballon & van Heesvelde 2011; Hands 2013; Jones & Thiruvathukal 2012; Tech Coders.com 2012) point out, re- gardless of their limitations, we should understand platforms as both hardware and software that allow other programs, such as applications and software, to run. Platforms are also commercial, because they not only provide opportunities for the users to communicate with one another but also afford platform designers and owners the opportunity to sell their platforms as commodities. This means that platforms can be explored from the perspective of the corporate sphere as ‘their operation is substantially defined by market forces and the process of commodity exchange’ (van Dijck 2012: 162). It is critical to understand the role of users in the process, given that platform users are the major commodity. Finally, because digital platforms are also technologies, we need to compre- hend a platform’s value, which is embedded in design. As several theoreticians

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(Feenberg 1991; Flanagin et al. 2012; Salter 2005) argue, technologies, including platform technologies, are not value neutral but, rather, have a cultural bias that embeds the values and communication preferences of the platform designers. Without a doubt, digital platforms mostly have commercial value because these platforms are designed to accumulate capital gains for platform designers and owners, which are now media megagiants. As such, I find that platforms indicate not simply a functional computational shape but also one with commercial and cultural values, including corporate values. As the nature of new media cannot be separated from society, a closer interpretation of the technical functions and traits of digital platforms connected to the corporate sphere, in this case their commercial and cultural values, is crucial. In particular, this kind of comprehensive and critical analysis of digital platforms helps determine challenges and opportunities in understanding global platforms as a new driver of imperialism. In the Korean context, locally based digital platforms, such as Naver, LINE, Daum, and Kakao Talk3, as well as Cyworld (now defunct), have had the opportunity to control their own market and even global markets. Because of the emergence of Korea’s digital platforms mentioned above, followed by those from other countries, including Japan and China, some might claim that the arrival of a few non-Western countries, in particular Korea, as major players in the platform market balances out asymmetrical power relations. It is, indeed, a significant matter because our understanding of global platforms may differ, depending on whether Korea’s platforms have been reorganized as part of the global flow of digital platforms and developed a balance between Western and non-Western countries. In other words, it is critical to analyze whether locally based digital platforms are able to challenge American-based digital platforms in their own markets, a possibility that may change the notion of platform imperialism. Therefore, this analysis, with its emphasis of the crucial role of local digital platforms in the midst of the increasing dominance of US digital platforms, will shed light on our current debates about platform imperialism.

Search Engines as Digital Platforms: Naver vs. Google

Korea has several important local platforms. This study, though, focuses on a few major areas, including search engines (internet portals in Korea),

3 Since October 2015, when Daum and Kakao merged, they have changed the company’s name to Kakao; however, the company still uses Daum as the name of a search engine and Kakao Talk as the name of a free mobile instant messenger.

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smartphone and relevant apps, and social network sites, each of which has substantially changed cultural lives and resulted in capital accumulation. Naver and Daum are the two largest web portals and developed or advanced the two most popular mobile instant messaging apps, LINE and Kakao, respectively. These two locally based portals have advanced their unique functions to compete against US-based search engines, and this means that companies like Google and Yahoo have not penetrated the Korean market to the same extent as markets in other countries.4 To begin with, Naver has been the most popular internet portal in Korea since 1999, when it was launched (Naver 2016a; Park et al. 2007).5 At the early stage, it was not popular because webpages in Korean were relative few in number. As the New York Times (Choe 2007) reported, ‘when NHN set up the search portal in 1999, the site looked like a grocery store where most of the shelves were empty. Like Google, Naver found there simply was not enough Korean text in cyberspace to make a Korean search engine a viable business’. To fill this void, in 2002 Naver began to create Korean-language text using its ‘Knowledge Search’ (Knowledge iN) service.6 After it developed Knowledge iN, Naver was able to utilize its users to connect to advertising as seen on other digital platforms, such as Facebook. Advertising as a share of revenue increased from only 9.7 per cent in 2001 to 72 per cent in the first quarter of 2015 (Han 2010; Naver 2015). Instead of remaining a major news delivery engine, Naver expanded its of- ferings to become a platform, adding local information search services in 2004, blog services in 2005, and webtoon (web comics) services in 2006.7 The strategy worked well because of its advanced infrastructure, including broadband. In fact, in the latter part of the 2000s, more than 70 % of the population used the Internet, most of them with high-speed connections, and they did not just want information; they also wanted a sense of community and the kind of

4 For example, Yahoo was a prominent search engine in the 1990s; however, due to the rapid growth of domestic search engines, it virtually disappears in the Korean search engine market. 5 In 2001, it changed its name to NHN after the merger with Hangame, although later it turned its name back to Naver. 6 In Knowledge iN, users pose questions on any subject and select among answers provided by other users, awarding points to the users who provide the best answers. 7 In the digital era, webtoons – combining Web and cartoon (meaning comic strips originally distributed via the internet but now also via the smartphone) – have become one of the most interesting digital cultures and changed the new media ecology. Several individuals started to produce webtoons in the late 1990s, and the popularity of these webtoons has rapidly grown with the introduction of smartphones in the early twenty-first century.

Asiascape: DigitalDownloaded Asia from 4 Brill.com10/01/2021 (2017) 209-232 06:03:13AM via free access A Critical Analysis Of The Corporate Sphere 215 human interaction provided by Naver’s Knowledge iN real-time question-and- answer platform (Choe 2007). Naver, as the largest internet portal, made up 83.7 per cent of Korea’s search-engine market in June 2016, followed by Daum (13.65%), Zum (1.05%), and Google (0.9%), based on the real number of visits (Internet Trend 2016). Naver has also been the most profitable internet corporation in Korea. As of May 2016, Naver’s market value was as high as $19 billion, and it had 5,564 employees (Forbes 2016). Naver’s annual revenue soared from 2.121 billion Korean won (comparable to $1.854 billion) in 2011 to 3.251 billion Korean won (comparable to $2.843 billion) in 2015 (Naver 2016b). Thanks to the strong presence of Naver and Daum, Google has not been dominant in Korea’s PC search engine market. However, understanding digital platforms is more complex and nuanced than previously assumed, mainly because Google’s influence is not negligible in the local market. Most of all, Google’s market share in mobile search has greatly changed. Although Naver continues to be the leader in both PC-based and mobile-based search engines, Google surpassed Daum in the smartphone sector a few years ago, to take second place. According to the market research firm Nielsen Korean Click (see Kim 2014), in September 2013 Google’s monthly market share was 12.02 per cent, surpassing Daum (11.4%) for the first time, and in April 2015 Google’s share increased to 14.5 per cent. Google increased its market share in the mobile sector primarily because it relies on its own operating system (Android). Android smartphones automatically use Google as the basic search engine, so people simply access Google instead of switching to Naver or Daum (Choi 2015; Kim 2014). Second, Naver and Daum-Kakao have not penetrated global markets. Based on its rapid growth in the Korean market, Naver has certainly developed its transnationalization strategy, which is one of the greatest assets for the company. For example, Naver established NHN Japan, which is the Japanese arm of Naver Corporation. In 2011, it launched a new service that took on a life of its own. LINE was developed in Japan after the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Widespread damage to Japan’s telecommunications infrastructure obliged NHN Japan employees to rely on internet tools to communicate. Engineers responded by developing LINE, which was released to the public in June of that year (Saito 2012). The explosive success of LINE led to the creation of Line Corporation in February 2013. The firm, based in Japan, is home to internet operations such as LINE, Naver Japan, and Livedoor (Park et al. 2014).8

8 LINE Corporation, a leading global platform for mobile messaging and communication services, content distribution, and advertising, began trading in July 2016 on the New York Stock Exchange, after its initial public offering. LINE raised $1.1 billion in gross proceeds (Business

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However, Naver and LINE have not penetrated Western markets. Google has extended its dominance globally as a media company. Mainly because of this critical issue, Lee Hae-Jin stepped down as Naver’s chairman in October 2016 to ‘focus on mapping out Naver’s overseas business strategies and finding start-ups in Europe’ (Park 2016). By doing this, he hopes to help the company expand to other major markets, including Europe and North America. Lee emphasizes that Naver cannot compete with global platforms such as Google and Facebook without finding a new driver engine in the global market. Despite its weak presence in Korea, Google has a commanding position among global search engines. In October 2015, Google had an 89.1 per cent worldwide market share, followed by Bing (4.07%), Yahoo (3.22%), and Baidu (0.68%) (Statista 2016). Except in a small number of countries, such as China, Russia, and Korea, Google is the world leader in search engines. Bing and Yahoo, which are runners-up in many countries, are also US-based platforms, thus American-based search engines have cemented their supremacy on the global market. Finally, only a few countries, including Korea, have been able to develop their own search engines and compete with their American counterparts. The majority of countries are not able to develop these platform companies because they lack the know-how, money, and manpower, and they have no choice but to increase their use of US-made digital platforms. In Korea, as discussed, Naver has become a dominant player in search engines; however, Google’s influence in the Korean market cannot be discounted because of the many platforms that Google has created and managed, such as YouTube – the largest user-generated content platform, including in Korea – and Google Play, which is discussed later. Even though Naver has maintained its role as the dominant search engine in the local market, an asymmetrical relationship remains between the United States and Korea and therefore other countries. In particular, in most platform areas where profits can be generated, ‘American-based corporations have been able to convert beachheads into monopoly fortresses and generate endless profit’ (McChesney 2013: 151). The reach of Google as a global digital platform has intensified its global dominance with a few exceptions.

Wire 2016). LINE is based in Tokyo, Japan, but controlled by Korea’s Naver and operates the LINE messaging app, a global service used in more than twenty-three countries. It offers free one-to-one and group messaging. Apart from its messaging app, which is used to send popular virtual stickers, it offers a wide range of nonmessaging services, ranging from games to photo sharing (Ibid.).

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Smartphones as Capitalist Social Platforms: Emerging Korea vs. Dominant United States

Smartphones offer some of the most significant digital platforms both as gad- gets as well as free mobile instant messaging devices and in allowing access to operating systems. Platforms are considered mainly as a way of converging hardware and software, and, therefore, it is critical to understand them as a whole. In other words, although platforms are treated separately, they need to be understood comprehensively. However, the smartphone sector has clearly shown contradictory and unbalanced trends. Korean smartphone makers, including Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, have developed and sold their handsets in global markets and made Korea a smartphone wonderland. Aside from handsets, Korea has been far behind the United States in that American operating systems and applications control the domestic market as well as the world market.

Emergence of Korea’s Smartphone Sphere

Several significant dimensions can be discussed with respect to the smartphone sphere in order to address the conflicts and tensions between locally made and globally made smartphone platforms. To begin with, Korean-made smartphones, such as Samsung’s Galaxy series and LG’s X series, have competed with iPhones and increased their global market share since their introduction in 2009. When Samsung focused on feature phones (i.e. mobile phones that are not smartphones) in 2008, its share of the global market for mobile phones was 3.6 per cent. In 2010, however, Samsung became the second-largest maker of mobile phones, with a 20.1 per cent market share, and then became the number one maker and exporter, with 23.4 per cent in 2012, surpassing Nokia (IDC 2012, 2013). In the second quarter of 2016, Samsung had nearly 10 per cent more market share than Apple, as the iPhone continued a downward trend, with a decline of 7.7 per cent in market share during the same period, compared to the second quarter of 2015 (Gartner 2016). However, the increasing popularity of iPhones in the Korean market shows that domestic handset manufacturers do not have a lock on the Korean market. According to the market research company Counterpoint (2015), in November 2014 Apple captured a record one- third of smartphone sales in Korea, threatening Samsung’s strong foothold in its home market for the first time. No foreign brand has ever held more than a 20 per cent market share of Korea’s smartphones. The situation continued in 2016, as the iPhone 7 was very competitive because of fears over Galaxy Note 7’s exploding batteries (Byford 2016).

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In addition, in the 2010s, free mobile instant messaging (IM) apps have ex- perienced phenomenal growth, and Korea has developed its own IM apps. As is well documented, in Korea as elsewhere, smartphones have rapidly replaced feature phones, and people use their smartphones for much more than making phone calls, predominantly for IM, using apps such as WhatsApp, WeChat, Kakao, and LINE, as well as Facebook. The corporations that created these apps have turned into symbols of ‘a corporate sphere’, which amplifies their market value by offering all kinds of services on their platforms while gather- ing data on their users for profit (van Dijck 2012), making the users the most desirable digital commodity. In the Korean market, Kakao Talk, the largest IM service, has been trying to enter the IM app market (Kim & Kang 2014). In addition to offering its own messaging features, Kakao Talk enables users to access several apps, ex- tending its functionality. Since its introduction in March 2010, the number of subscribers has soared. As of April 2014, Kakao Talk held 87.8 per cent (about 30 million) of the Korean market share, followed by Facebook Messenger (6 million users) and LINE (5.5 million users) (Chang 2015). Based on its domestic success, the company has invested in Southeast Asia, mainly in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia, as it seeks growth (Song 2014). This soaring number states that Kakao Talk’s overseas user base is growing. Koreans do not use the app just to chat: it is also a popular platform for playing mobile games, which is the largest source of revenue for Kakao, and for sending both digital and physical gifts (Economist 2014). In 2014, Kakao Talk merged with the domestic internet-portal operator Daum, which highlights the increasing commodification of digital platforms as they have become some of the most significant companies in the digital age. Daum undoubtedly hopes this merger will increase Kakao Talk’s functionality and thereby its competitiveness with Naver. Kakao bought Daum Communications in an all-stock deal, hoping to boost its presence in web and mobile services. Under the deal, which gave the unlisted Kakao a valuation of $3.03 billion, Kakao gained 75 per cent ownership of a new company called Daum Kakao (Lee 2014). This merger occurred right after Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp, which it announced in February 2014, for $19 billion in cash and stock (Lee 2014). Among the many reasons for the recent convergence with IM service corporations, one of the most significant is the platform function of this new service engine. After the merger of Daum and Kakao, Sir-goo Lee, the co-CEO of Daum Kakao, clearly stated, ‘mobile, life, platform and connection are the four keywords that represent Daum Kakao’s directions. We are aiming at becoming mobile lifestyle platform leader’ (Bahk 2014; Daum Kakao 2014), a sentiment

Asiascape: DigitalDownloaded Asia from 4 Brill.com10/01/2021 (2017) 209-232 06:03:13AM via free access A Critical Analysis Of The Corporate Sphere 219 also announced in a press release by the new firm in October 2014. Korea has advanced the penetration of its own smartphone handsets and IM applications, in competition with Apple and WhatsApp in global markets, which shows the possibility for locally made platform technologies to emerge.

Intensifying American Hegemony

Countries such as Korea, China, and Japan have expanded their presence in global markets for smartphone handsets and IM apps, however, the United States has remained dominant in operating systems, with both Google’s Android9 and Apple’s iOS producing IM and other applications in addition to their popular hardware. Most of all, Android’s commanding penetration comes from demand for mid- to low-end smartphones in emerging markets as well as for its high-end smartphones, especially after a number of key Android players introduced their new high-end devices, such as Samsung with the Galaxy S7. As Roberta Cozza, research director at technology market research firm Gartner (2016), points out,

Google is evolving the Android platform fast, which allows Android players to remain at the cutting edge of smartphone technology. Facing a highly commoditized smartphone market, Google’s focus is to further expand and diversify the Android platform with additional functionalities, like virtual reality, enabling more-intelligent experiences and reach into wearables, connected home devices, in-car entertainment and TV.

Android, which was invented in 2003 and integrated into Google, has been the world’s best-selling smartphone OS. The two largest American OS – Android and iOS (12.9 per cent) – accounted for 97.1 per cent of the market in the second quarter of 2016, which is not the case in other market segments. Because Samsung is the largest handset provider globally, it is Google’s largest customer. In addition, the United States has expanded its lead in global IM markets. According to eMarketer (2015), mobile IM apps were by more than 1.4 billion consumers in 2015, up 31.6 per cent over the level the previous year. Although

9 In addition to iPhones in the United States, in October 2016, Google launched two smartphones, the Pixel and Pixel XL. ‘The two Android smartphones are the first to carry Google’s branding without being associated with another manufacturer and are a clear mark in the sand by the Android-maker’ (Gibbs 2016). Therefore, these two US-based smartphones may compete with non-American-made smartphones.

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Kakao Talk in Korea, LINE in Japan, and WeChat in China are almost unchal- lenged domestically, the two US-based IM apps are the largest globally. Although the IM app market is crowded, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger – now both owned by Facebook – are two global powerhouses, with significant reach in more than twenty countries (eMarketer 2015). Since October 2014, with its acquisition of WhatsApp, Facebook has increased its global dominance.10 At the same time, Facebook provides a business model for converging with an IM, which is one of the most valued features of digital platforms. Because Facebook is a cornucopia in the platform market, after it develops certain types of business strategies, they are must-take-and-follow business trends for other platform owners. In the process, Facebook’s commercial ideology has been adopted by locally based platforms. Meanwhile, two American app stores, Google Play and Apple’s App Store, are primary players in the local market, as in many other countries, and hence exert control over the Korean app economy. The Korean mobile content market increased from approximately $3.18 billion in 2014 to $4.55 billion in 2015. The mobile content market includes fee-based apps and advertising in apps (Korea Mobile Internet Business Association 2014; Yonhap News 2015a). In Korea, Google Play alone made up 51.8 per cent of the mobile content market, and the App Store comprised 31.3 per cent, which means that these two Western-based platforms accounted for a combined 83.1 per cent of the Korean app economy. Other markets, including Samsung Galaxy Apps, were not significant. This trend will continue because two US-based operating systems – Android and iOS – consist of more than 95 per cent of the market in domestic operating systems. Because Google Play and the App Store are preinstalled on Google and Apple smartphones, respectively, they have inherent advantages, so naturally they can extend their market share in the local market. Because of the rapid growth of several key ICT sectors, Korea could be one of the major app economies; however, it cannot make its own counterparts to these US- based operating systems and applications despite its efforts to make operating systems (e.g. Samsung’s Tizen and Galaxy Apps). The power of apps, in terms of operating systems, creates new resources and new productive capacity, and its strategic use has tremendous benefits for app developers and corporations that own app (van Couvering 2012). The current monopolistic capitalism controlled by Android and iOS consequently extends inequalities between the United States and other countries, including Korea. In the 2010s, applications, in particular operating systems and app stores on

10 Mergers and acquisitions in digital platforms have become common because of their importance as profitable commodities that need to grow their user base.

Asiascape: DigitalDownloaded Asia from 4 Brill.com10/01/2021 (2017) 209-232 06:03:13AM via free access A Critical Analysis Of The Corporate Sphere 221 smartphones, play a major role as a fundamental resource for the growth of the platform economy and culture, and the app market is a new battleground created by the accumulation of capital.

Social Network Sites as Platforms: Cyworld vs. Facebook

Social network sites have become some of the most significant digital platforms, and American-made platforms dominate the Korean market. Although Korea developed Cyworld and m2day, comparable to Facebook and Twitter, respectively, these two local SNSs could not survive because of the two major US SNSs. In the Korean market, a locally made SNS, known as Cyworld, was a major player until 2015, when it officially closed down, and as of October 2016, Facebook is the largest SNS. Cyworld was created as a personal information management system by in- dividual inventors at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in 1999, ahead of Facebook, which was created in 2004. Cyworld was initially thought of as a personal contact website, a way to connect to a user’s immediate circle of friends. However, it gained popularity as an SNS in 2001 with the launching of its template-based homepage service (Choi 2006).11 By the end of 2008, almost half of Koreans were connected through Cyworld, and more than 90 per cent of twenty- to twenty-nine-year-olds used it on a regular basis (Kim 2009). The growth of Cyworld relied on the increasing number of young users who dedicated their time and energy to continuing their connections with others (Jin 2015b). Like many other SNSs, Cyworld became a commodity, and it was sold to SK Communications – a subsidiary of SK Telecom, the largest provider in South Korea of wireless services – in 2003 (Lim 2003). Cyworld, however, did not survive, as Koreans moved to Facebook and Twitter. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, which rely on smartphones, Cyworld did not develop smartphone-based services and eventually went out of business (Baek 2015). Until the late 2000s, because of Cyworld, foreign-based social network sites did not penetrate the Korean market. However, as detailed below, Cyworld could not sustain its supremacy and disappeared in part because of Facebook’s increasing popularity in Korea. Since the early 2010s, Facebook has increased in market share, and it held 59.8 per cent of the Korean SNS market in December 2015, followed by Kakao Story (17.1%), Instagram (10.3%), Band

11 The homepage, called mini-hompy, is a small online space that users get when they become members, and they express themselves to others there. Members can form buddy relationships by linking their mini-hompy to that of another user.

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(a local SNS, 8.2%), and Twitter (2.4%) (DMC 2015). The number of Facebook users in Korea has risen rapidly, from 2.1 million at the end of 2010 to 16 million at the end of 2015, meaning about 31 per cent of Koreans have Facebook accounts (Yonhap News 2015b). Cyworld was vulnerable because it remained mainly a simple social network site, while Facebook has developed into a platform with an advanced role in aggregating services. In 2006, Facebook introduced the Facebook Development Platform (Facebook 2006b), a new set of services that enable developers to create outside applications to work with Facebook. In 2007, Facebook also launched the Facebook Platform (Helmond 2015: 1). Since May 2007, Facebook users have been able to download and interact with Facebook applications as well as those developed by outside companies that access Facebook’s platform (Cohen 2008; Shim 2016). The process of platformization has been a critical dimension of the growth of social media (Helmond 2015). Several US-based social media platforms (e.g. Facebook) and search engines (e.g. Google) have been very successful at platformization based on their global users, both indi- vidual customers and corporate users, resulting in the massive accumulation of capital in their hands. Their global dominance has increased as their market share has continued to grow, and the advantage of platformization will contribute to the power asymmetry caused by platform imperialism. Facebook has maintained its rate of growth and generates thousands of new user registrations every day. The number of total users grew from 585 million in December 2010 to 1.13 billion daily active users on average in June 2016. In addition, it had 1.03 billion daily active mobile users on average in June 2016 (Facebook 2016). These users are important because they contribute to the high valuation assigned to Facebook. As of June 2016, approximately 84.5 per cent of daily active users were outside the United States and Canada. This implies that Facebook has expanded its domination of global markets, resulting in another form of asymmetrical power relations in the realm of digital platforms (Facebook 2016). Several countries have developed their own SNSs, and locally based SNSs are market leaders in Japan (Mixi), China (QQ), and Russia (VK.COM). However, as Cyworld in Korea clearly exemplifies, locally based platforms are vulnerable because Facebook as a social media platform has penetrated most countries. As Cohen (2008) and O’Reily (2005) points out, Facebook is the leader of in- teractive, participant-based Web 2.0, which creates value from the sharing of information by users. As the number of Facebook users has soared, advertisers and corporations have focused more on Facebook, of course, and other leading social network sites, as an alternative advertising medium in the era of digital

Asiascape: DigitalDownloaded Asia from 4 Brill.com10/01/2021 (2017) 209-232 06:03:13AM via free access A Critical Analysis Of The Corporate Sphere 223 platforms (Jin & Feenberg 2015).12 As discussed elsewhere (Jin 2015a: 59-60), SNSs have gained attention as online spaces and platforms for both young people and adults in the 2010s, and American-based digital platforms have rapidly penetrated the world and enjoyed sizable capital gains. Most of all, as Helmond (2015: 1) argues, the global presence of Facebook was made possible mainly because, again, Facebook has transformed from a social networking site into a social media platform. In this regard, American-based platforms are technologies, products, or services that create value primarily by enabling direct interactions between two or more customer or participant groups. Prominent examples of multisided platforms and the participants they connect include Facebook (users, advertisers, third-party game or content developers, and affiliated third-party sites); Apple’s iOS (application developers and users); Google’s Android operating system (handset manufacturers, application developers, and users) (Hagiu 2014: 71). Cyworld and Facebook have had different results. Both started as SNSs to provide a new networking tool for users to connect with friends; however, it is Facebook that has survived and dominated global markets, including Korea, primarily because of its successful transformation into a digital platform.

Emergence of Local Platforms vs. Asymmetrical Power Relations

As Naver and Kakao Talk in Korea exemplify, some countries have developed their own digital platforms in the midst of a geopolitics of platform domination by the United States. However, as proven in Korea, with a few exceptions, the United States, as the largest provider of digital platforms, has continued to dominate digital platforms, resulting in the advent of platform imperialism. Most of all, what is certain is that the United States has controlled several key platforms, including smartphone applications and operating systems. Apple’s App Store and Google Play have become the two major places to get all kinds of applications. As one of the most significant standards determining the role of

12 Unlike Facebook and MySpace, which primarily rely on online advertising as a major source of revenue, Cyworld relies heavily on direct funding, which is another reason that Cyworld did not survive. Cyworld users directly bought e-cash to enhance their Cyworld site, through its avatar system. They bought the e-cash called Dotori (which means “acorn”) to decorate their homepage; however, this business model was not effective at a later stage, because Cyworld users turned their attention to Facebook, where they did not need to pay real money to enhance their social networks (see Jin 2015b).

Asiascape: Digital Asia 4 (2017) 209-232 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 06:03:13AM via free access 224 Jin digital platforms is their global presence, Korea cannot penetrate the global markets due to the increasing role of these US-based platforms. Some Korean platforms, such as Kakao Talk and LINE, are popular mainly in Korea and Japan, not in Western markets Platforms also have a commercial value. On the one hand, US-based platforms have much bigger commercial value than locally based platforms, because they have global users, unlike locally based platforms, which mainly target domestic users. As van Dijck (2013) argues, the contemporary political economy approach in the platform era must consider users the major focus of its analysis, because they are not only consumers but also producers. Digital platforms rely heavily on people’s access to and use of their platforms, and US-based platforms have benefited from their global presence because they appropriate soaring user bases in order to transform their daily activities into revenue resources. Owners of platforms use the data gathered from users as they create. On the other hand, platforms have become commodities, to be sold and bought. As seen in Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp and the merger of Kakao Talk and Daum, platforms have become the most wanted commodities, mainly because platform power grows with the number of users. As van Dijck (2012: 162) aptly puts it, a platform operation is ‘defined by market forces and the process of commodity exchange’ that characterizes the corporate sphere. As such, platforms and their owners mediate and coordinate among various players (Ballon & van Heesvelde 2011), both globally and nationally. In particular, platform owners follow the norm established by US-made platforms. Global digital platforms have certainly influenced locally based digital platforms in that they offer new business models. Finally, the cultural values embedded in platform designs eventually go on to cultivate both commercial and cultural values. As Feenberg (1991) points out, again, technologies, in this case, digital platforms, reflect the cultural bias, values, and communication preferences of their designers. Platforms as mediators are indeed economic entities, with both a direct economic role as creators of surplus value through commodity production and exchange and an indirect role, through advertising, in the creation of surplus value (Garnham 1997). As Fuchs (2015: 34-35) argues in the case of Chinese social media in comparison with US-based social media, they are primarily not a communication platform but large advertising agencies. The logic of commerce, capitalism, and advertising dominates digital platforms. ‘Free platform use makes it difficult for users to see the commodity logic underlying these platforms and the role their use has as unpaid digital labor that generates economic value’ (Fuchs 2015: 35).

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Gillespie (2010) claims that the participatory and economic dimensions of platforms are more significant than their computational aspects. In other words, social media platforms are private businesses and ‘some of their decisions will be craven, or financially motivated, or constrained in ways even they cannot recognize’ (Gillespie 2015: 2). Digital platforms shape the social dynamics and ‘allow people to draw connections between the design (technical, economic, and political) of platforms and the contours of the public discourse they host’ (Ibid.). Digital platforms often ‘reinforce the values of designers and those of targeted users.… the technological design of online spaces, tools, applications, and devices constitutes a contested terrain where the imposition of designers’ values and preferences are at odds with the values and preferences of the intended user base’ (Bodle 2010: 15). In fact, the increasing global domination of US-made platforms operates rel- atively uniformly at the level of physical and software interfaces. As Steinberg (forthcoming: 6-7) aptly puts it:

this is visible on an everyday basis in the increasing global dominance of iPhone and particularly Android devices around the world, monopoliz- ing market share, and funneling users towards their proprietary apps and content ecosystems. This de facto infiltration of markets by Apple and Google gives the two companies an unprecedented reach into the cultural lives of their users – and this is particularly the case with users in Asia.

What is important is that digital platform owners such as Google have ‘po- sitioned themselves as champions of freedom of expression, and “platform” works here too, deftly linking the technical, figurative and political’ (Gillespie 2010: 356), proving the cultural biases and preferences of designers embedded in platform technologies. US-based platforms have influenced locally based platforms with the formation of a corporate sphere in ways that are more sub- stantial for capital accumulation and the expansion of hegemonic power. The US-made digital platforms have functioned as mediators, not only commer- cially but also culturally. In the 2010s, several locally based digital platforms are engaged in a fight for global platform dominance. However, US-based platforms have extended their global hegemony because they act as major mediators thanks to their advanced roles in aggregating multiple functions and services. The United States, which traditionally controlled non-Western countries with its capital and culture, seems to dominate the world with platforms, benefiting from these

Asiascape: Digital Asia 4 (2017) 209-232 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 06:03:13AM via free access 226 Jin platforms in terms of both capital accumulation and the spread of American commercial values such as free trade, free expression, and scepticism about regulation (Jin 2015a: 7; Manjoo 2016). As the New York Times points out, in the rest of the world, ‘there is a deep fear of usurpation through tech’ – a worry that platform giants ‘could grow so large and become so deeply entrenched in world economies that they could effectively make their own laws’ (Manjoo 2016). The current state of platform development implies a technological domination by US-based corporations that have substantially affected global customers. As Steinberg (forthcoming: 7) also argues, ‘platform, interface and hardware device may well represent a renewed axis of American imperialism – as platform imperialism’. For him, ‘American platforms increasingly operate as the global distributors of content through their platforms’. Digital platforms are not an American monopoly, and Korea has proved that non-Western countries are able to develop digital platforms comparable to American counterparts. However, in Korea, domestically based platforms, even smartphones, have decreased in national dominance amid the strong presence of US-based platforms.

Conclusion

This article analyzes the major characteristics of local digital platforms and the construction of platform imperialism in the Korean context. It focuses on a few locally created platforms, including search engines (e.g. Naver), smartphones (e.g. Samsung Galaxy) and relevant apps (e.g. Kakao Talk), and social network sites (e.g. Cyworld) and compared them to US-based platforms in order to determine whether Korean-based digital platforms are able to compete with Google, Apple, and Facebook so as to challenge platform imperialism. Digital platforms, such as search engines, social network sites, and smartphones, have gained significance in the digital economy, and this article ex- plores digital platforms as mediators, instead of intermediaries. As Gillespie (forthcoming) points out, platforms may not create the content, but they do create important choices about that content, meaning what digital platforms distribute and to whom, how these platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, connect users and broker their interactions, and what they have to refuse. However, digital platforms are mediators. Digital platforms as sites of content containment, distribution, and management play a pivotal role as the mediators of production and consumption. In this regard, both the US-based Google and Facebook and Korea’s Naver have developed platforms as content-control

Asiascape: DigitalDownloaded Asia from 4 Brill.com10/01/2021 (2017) 209-232 06:03:13AM via free access A Critical Analysis Of The Corporate Sphere 227 ecosystems that sell and distribute existing content. Emphasis falls on the creation of platforms that open onto closed ecosystems of content, with digital platforms functioning as an architecture of diffusion and transmission, as well as creation (Steinberg forthcoming). Daum-Kakao Talk and Naver-LINE as locally based platforms operate as a marked form of mediation that permits further creation. Korea has rapidly advanced its digital platforms, such as Naver, Kakao Talk, and Cyworld. In the local context, the transformation of the digital economy in Korea has offered opportunities for several platform owners, and Korea has presumably challenged US dominance. However, Korea’s seemingly solid platforms have shown weaknesses as well, as can be seen in the case of Cyworld. Although some locally based platforms have successfully penetrated regional markets, as the case of LINE shows in a few Asian countries, they cannot penetrate Western markets because of existing US-based platforms. The supremacy of US-based platforms, both locally and globally, is significant because it implies a continuation of American influence in terms of ideological hegemony and capital accumulation. Arguably, we still live in an imperialist era by way of platform imperialism even in Korea – one of the most advanced and networked societies. As Josifidis and Losonc (2014: 608) aptly put it, the notion of platform imperialism in particular ‘evokes the complex interactions of the dynamics of capital as well as technological innovations and inventiveness, and the diffusion of technology … and it is undeniable that U.S. still holds a hegemonic position in the IT sphere’. The United States has used its imperial power with digital platforms and has continued to actualize its global dominance. Therefore, a deeper cri- tique of the embodied materiality of digital platforms situates the analysis of digital platforms more concretely within contemporary research on imperialism (Casemajor 2015; Leorke 2012; Parikka 2012). Platform imperialism has become much more significant than other forms of imperialism, because the global penetration of US platforms signals the increasing role of the United States in all cultural areas, including production, distribution, and consumption. Digital platforms mediate the entire chain because they produce, distribute, and consume digital content, while commodi- fying the users, and, in that way, we cannot deny that US-made platforms are global giants. Korea and a few other countries have developed several successful platforms; however, the bigger these US-based platform giants become, the less room they allow for local platforms, which consequently intensifies asymmetrical power relations.

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