Data Driven Disruptive Commons- Based Models
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Data driven disruptive commons- based models H2020–ICT-2016-1 DECODE D2.4 Data driven disruptive commons-based models 1 Project no. 732546 DECODE DEcentralised Citizens Owned Data Ecosystem D2.4 Data driven disruptive commons-based models Version Number: V1.0 Lead beneficiary: CNRS Due Date: October 31st Author(s): Carlo Vercellone (Dir. CNRS-CEMTI) Francesco Brancaccio (CNRS-CEMTI), Alfonso Giuliani (CNRS), Federico Puletti (Université Paris Nanterre), Giulia Rocchi (CNRS), Pierluigi Vattimo (CNRS). Contributor(s): Francesca Bria (IMI BCN), Antonio Calleja López (UOC), Oleguer Sagarra (IMI BCN), Tom Demeyer (Waag). Editors and reviewers: (WAAG), (UOC), (IMI). Dissemination level: PU Public × PP Restricted to other programme participants (including the Commission Services) RE Restricted to a group specified by the consortium (including the Commission Services) CO Confidential, only for members of the consortium (including the Commission Services) Approved by: Francesca Bria (Chief Technology and Digital Innovation Officer, Barcelona City Hall). Date: 31/10/2018 H2020–ICT-2016-1 DECODE D2.4 Data driven disruptive commons-based models 2 Contents Introduction 6 1. Platform capitalism and two-sided markets 8 1.1 The economic laws of platform and data capitalism 10 1.2. The ‘merchantable gratuitousness’ models of Google and Facebook: advertising and unpaid digital labour 15 1.2.1 The Google case: the platform of platforms or integrated global platform 18 1.2.2. The Facebook case: the network of social networks 24 1.2.3. The controversy about free digital labour and prosumers’ work 28 1.3. The model of the ‘uberisation’ of the economy and on-demand platforms: back to digital putting-out systems? 39 1.4 The hybrid model of Amazon: labour and Big Data in the ‘monstrous e-commerce’ 44 1.5 Generalisation of the platform model: towards the nomos of the Cloud, the Internet of Things and the Smart Cities 56 2. Resistance and alternative models to platform capitalism 77 2.1 Voice and exit, and their possible combinations depending on the three platform categories 77 2.2. The way of voice and resistance within and against the logic of platform capitalism 82 2.2.1. Movements and class actions against the private appropriation of data by social network platforms and search engines 88 2.2.2. Movements and class actions against the ‘uberisation’ of the economy 99 2.2.3. Movements against Amazon and the use of data as a neo-Tayloristic tool to control work 109 2.2.4. Strength and ambiguity of ‘resistance practices’ and ‘counter conducts’: Darknet, Tor, and ad blockers 113 2.3. The way of exit and the commons 120 2.3.1. The ideal type of the commons as production mode: examples of Wikipedia and free software 121 2.3.1.1. Free software 121 2.3.1.2. Wikipedia 126 2.3.2. Potential alternatives to the Google and Facebook models: search engines, social networks and experiments on specific functionalities. 132 2.3.2.1. Search engines: proprietary alternatives (DuckDuckGo and Qwant, and non- proprietary alternatives (YaCy and FramaBee). A critical review. 136 2.3.2.1.1. DuckDuckGo 136 2.3.2.1.2. Qwant 139 2.3.2.1.3. YaCy 140 H2020–ICT-2016-1 DECODE D2.4 Data driven disruptive commons-based models 3 2.3.2.1.4. Framabee 143 2.3.2.2. Social networks and their ‘similars’: Diaspora and Mastodon 144 2.3.2.2.1. Diaspora 146 2.3.2.2.2. Mastodon 152 2.3.2.3. Functionality and Cloud: Open Data and OpenStreetMap 153 2.3.2.3.1. Open Data 155 2.3.2.3.2. OpenStreetMap 160 2.3.2.4. 'Tous ensemble!': the FramaSoft project as a prefiguration of a federative model 165 2.3.3. The platform cooperatives’ approach between the historical legacy of the cooperative movement and innovation: a critical analysis 171 2.3.3.1. Alternatives to Uber, Deliveroo, Airbnb: BackFeed, LibreTaxi, La’Zooz, Smart, CoopCycle, Guest-to-Guest, Fairbnb 182 2.3.3.2. Platform cooperatives alternative to Amazon in the field of consumption and large-scale distribution: Fairmondo, FairMarket (FairCoop) 199 3. Conclusion: from platform capitalism to commons-based models. Proposals for a transition project 211 3.1. From ‘global’ to ‘local’: an agenda for the sustainability of the commons movement and the neo-municipal perspective 219 3.1.1. Proposals on a general level: basic income as a common-based institution at the service of common-based models 219 3.1.2. Rethinking the taxation of digital businesses 223 3.1.3. The class action as a new form of collective negotiation at the time of the prosumer and digital labour 229 3.1.4. Development of digital cooperativism based on commons-based principles 231 3.2. Commons-based federalism and neo-municipalism 233 3.2.1 The case of Barcelona: digital participative democracy as an actual alternative to the Smart City model 235 3.2.2 The case of Naples: from the recognition of urban civic use to the blockchain as a decentralised technology in the management of common goods 239 3.2.3 Two key technological pivots for interconnected cities: a decentralised Cloud and Open Data stabilization 242 Annex A - DECODE pilots’ fact sheets 249 Bibliography 264 H2020–ICT-2016-1 DECODE D2.4 Data driven disruptive commons-based models 4 H2020–ICT-2016-1 DECODE D2.4 Data driven disruptive commons-based models 5 Introduction This deliverable aims at characterizing alternative production models based on two schools of thought: the logic of the knowledge commons, and platform cooperatives. Building on the analysis undertaken in the D2.2, it will give particular attention to the forms of organisation of ‘work’. This will be linked to the other principles that make it possible to define a commons-based production model, alternative to that of capitalist platforms: governance rules; financing models; conception of technologies; legal models of ownership of the means of production (in particular the management of algorithms and data). With this in mind, the report will be divided into two parts which, although closely linked, can be read independently by the hurried reader. The first part, in line with our previous work (D2.2), will return to the labour organisation and profit models underlying capitalist platforms. After highlighting the systemic risks and negative externalities that the development of platform capitalism entails for society as a whole, it will be shown that not only is it possible, but also necessary to test alternative models based on the principles of the commons. The second part will be thus devoted to the analysis of the alternatives to platform capitalism. Following Albert Hirschman, we will distinguish between the two main ways through which forms of resistance and alternative experimentations to the Internet oligopolies and gig economy emerge in the society: a) the way of voice and b) the way of exit, which can be combined. a) With voice we mean different forms of claims that range from class actions to new phenomena of unionism and mutualism as in the case of the workers engaged by Uber, Deliveroo, Amazon, etc. We will also analyse socially widespread practices aimed at circumventing the control of platforms. b) With exit we refer to productive experimentations aiming to build real alternatives (such as cooperative platforms, urban and knowledge commons, social networks H2020–ICT-2016-1 DECODE D2.4 Data driven disruptive commons-based models 6 and search engines) which subvert, in whole or in part, the principles of the data- driven industry. For pedagogical purposes, the latter (b) will be characterized in opposition to the three main ideal types of platform capitalism: i) The model of social network platforms based on free digital labour. ii) The model of the so-called on-demand economy. iii) The model of the e-commerce platforms of logistics and distribution. We will also take into account the trend of platform capitalism to extend its logic to more and more economic sectors and, in the context of the so-called Smart Cities, to metropolitan governance. The conclusion will be dedicated to reflect on an agenda to promote the sustainability of the commons and alternative platforms. In this perspective, particular emphasis will be placed on a strategic node: combining the development of neo-communalist experiences with a project of federation of the commons and cooperative platforms. This is the only way to allow a real leap in quality, permitting alternative models to get out of the niche logic in which they are often locked. H2020–ICT-2016-1 DECODE D2.4 Data driven disruptive commons-based models 7 1. Platform capitalism and two- sided markets1 The organisation of the big Internet oligopolies takes place essentially in the framework of what are called in Economic Theory ‘two-sided markets’: the platform (the operational heart of the firm) acts as a pivot and connects a public of suppliers and a public of demanders or users of a certain service. This feature is closely associated with other fundamental economic laws – or, at least, regularities – ruling the functioning of capitalist platforms' political economy and data industries: the 'Metcalfe's law' on network economy, the 'pioneer's advantage law' and the 'winner takes all law'; the way in which the preponderance of capital, labour and immaterial raw materials introduces substantial differences between the operating logic of platform capitalism corporations and that of industrial capitalism. We would also like to point out that the aim of this chapter is to go beyond a simple review of the literature, which often focuses on some of these aspects, isolating (or not seeing) the link between them. We have tried to remedy this gap.