Platformization

Platformization (Globalisation,  The Great Reset)
Interest of	• Amazon • Apple • Facebook • Google • Microsoft • Samsung • TikTok • WEF
As a part of globalisation, platformization in the introduction of platforms or a new structure based on algorithms and disintermediation in a supply chain. It was hailed as preferable to weaken old power structures for the common men. Such as how YouTube gave artists their own "platform".

Platformization is when the dominant method (the platform) on how to provide a service, be it by the government or a group of distributors - often companies - creating a market for demand, is changed from being provided by a fixed and regulated entity to a free-market privatized group of businesses often with forms of disintermediation (cutting out the middle man). The term, although not by name was promoted by members of the World Economic Forum for 2030.

Official narrative

An intro on this complex term and what the economy in it will look like.

It has helped the emergency of the sharing economy, where people stop owning products and services and start lending them, how trivial or more costly it may be. It was not the face of much criticism until the late 2010s, until citizens started realizing how much of a monopoly one entity can have on services.

“"Platformization is when you create a marketplace/environment as your service, then charge people to use it. And to keep people around, you add value through transaction facilitation, user experience, and integration. This is easiest to understand with an example.

Imagine that there’s a village market. All the farmers come along with their turnips and peas to sell. The farmers and customers are marketplace participants. They participate in the market and make money from their products (or, get goods from the farmers).

In this case, the platform would be whoever owns the village square. Say they charge $1 for each farmer to set up their stall in the square. They own the environment that facilitates transactions between farmers and customers but they don’t actually produce any fruit and vegetables themselves."”
Spencer Grover

Types

Marketing consultants TechTarget name three main types;

• Transaction platforms- Also known as digital matchmakers, these are platforms that serve as a type of virtual marketplace or meeting place for various groups of people. Examples of transaction platform companies include Amazon, Etsy and Facebook.
• Innovation platforms- These provide technology frameworks to customers that can be adapted to individual use. Examples of innovation platform companies include Microsoft, Oracle and Salesforce.
• Integration platform- This is a combination of the transaction and innovation platform, similar to online application marketplaces like the Apple App Store or Google Play.

Methods

Algorithm manipulation

No matter where you are the goal of any commercial entity is to keep you using them as long as possible.

Many new companies forming the Platform Economy use algorithms to effectively help their costumers, most users do not know how it works. In fact several of the biggest sites have developers that stopped understanding how their own algorithm works.

II-linked and DisinfoPortal member Guillaume Chaslot called the algorism not in the consumers interests; "It isn’t inherently awful that YouTube uses AI to recommend video for you, because if the AI is well tuned it can help you get what you want. This would be amazing,” Chaslot told TNW. “But the problem is that the AI isn’t built to help you get what you want — it’s built to get you addicted to YouTube. Recommendations were designed to waste your time.”

Although the article was used to name "conspiracy theorists" as resulting consequences of allowing these algorithms, both sides of the spectrum have access to social media outlets where they can get support for their opinions, with examples being Gab, Parler and 4chan and Reddit, TikTok and Twitter on the other side of "political spectrum" and can become the victim of using algorithms keeping them engaged with the site, purely focused on having them on the site, with the site ownership not really caring about the opinions voiced on the site.

Tracing

Many sites trace their users digitally, and even their physical location, even when not on their site.

Another method is the increased opportunity given to inhabitants to rent goods and services, ranging from cars, TVs, bikes to (digital) toys. The fact that an increasingly part of the population is renting out because they can't buy the product as they become wage slaves or debt slaves is often downplayed.

Monopolies

Amazon was accused by ProPublica by placing their more expensive products first on their pages to perhaps people into buying Amazon Prime. The site notes that Amazon leaves distributors questioning these kind of tactics with often little to no choice as Amazon forces selling already on paying hefty fees, thereby preventing them to lower their price, with the sole other option being leaving the platform.

Dependency

Monopolies of these platforms can cause unwanted control in influence. Big Tech has a stranglehold on political opinions on their platforms, being increasingly vital in maintaining censorship for unwanted opinions.

Where a TV or radio station in the previous millennium only faced backslash from the government regulator and a possible judge, the current group of sites giving a platform and being able to cut off access to a site now also include, the Internet service provider, the server host, the search engine and the social media platform being used to promote the site, stimulating the effectiveness of cancel culture.

Examples

Since globalisation caused many usual methods of providing a service to be deemed "too expensive", "too slow" or "too sinisterly owned", many individuals have started up services to serve a wider audience within their intended costumer group.

Recognizable sections are but not limited to; Streaming services such as Netflix, who replaced VHS stores and citizens who deemed recording or staying up to watch TV too time consuming and YouTube, who gave artists a new platform to create a following one and make a living, thereby replacing most radio stations. Social communication platforms such as social media and blogs gave citizens a quick way to meet other people online and discuss with them. Sometime previously only possible by calling into TV, Radio, or calling them. Travel and accommodation services such as Uber, AirBnB or Booking.com.

Concerns

Privatization has led to corruption in many cases. To maintain a dominant face on the market and to be able to not get eaten up by other multinationals, some platforms such as taxi services and consumer goods industry make their employees victims of wage slavery.

Algorithms and how they work are not revealed by companies trying to seize and maintain market share in their platform sector, which is argued a breach of law my multiple scholars. Other companies such as YouTube serve users that are aligning with certain societal opinions only videos they like based on their tracking their history on and off the site., according to activist Eli Pariser. Platform workers often work irregular and long hours, putting them at risk of cardiovascular diseases, as the workers and the consumers are increasingly falling victim to the usage of platforms that focus on flexible and quick service, aiding a very quick award of dopamine for the average user and "gamificating" the livelihoods of employees.

AirBnB has been accused of "destroying cities" by stimulating investors to buy up apartments, split the rooms into separate houses and sell them to tourist the whole year round, therefore making it harder for locals to use the local house market and creating social tension by lowering social cohesion with complains of difference kinds of pollution.

Usage in popular media

Notice the pronoun: "you", not "we" "will own nothing and still be happy" in 2030.

In a short fiction story by Ida Auken (Member of the Parliament of Denmark) on the WEforum website from late 2016 she envisions a future in which no one has any private property anymore, since the concept of ownership became obsolete in a city where everything can be ordered as a service. She points out that this is not her "utopia or dream of the future", however, this article is very much in line with a talk she held in 2015, in which she more or less promoted the concept:

“And if you lease, why should­n’t you lease your refrig­er­a­tor, or your wash­ing machine, or our dish­wash­er. Why do you want to own it? I mean it’s not like the plas­tic and the met­al is like, ​“You! I own it.” A bro­ken dish­wash­er. I mean wow. No, why don’t you want to go into a busi­ness mod­el where the com­pa­ny owns it? You know what hap­pens when the com­pa­ny owns it? Actually, they can bring down the prices because they don’t have to buy new met­al and new plas­tic.”
Ida Auken

Black Mirror

Black Mirror is UK science fiction anthology series. The program explored technology and its "side effects". In a season 3 episode of the series, called Nosedive, people are rating all their social interactions with others, affecting the person's socio economical status, which causes negatively reviewed persons to be limited in buying better apartments or other services. The episode soon gathered critics to compare it to China's Social Credit system, not explaining how 60% of US employees have started to hire people solely on social media profiles according to a article from the Brigham Young-University

 

An example

Page name	Description
Corporate media/Consolidation	The conglomeration of Corporate media.

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Big Tech	“So one of the things that these five companies have done kind of masterfully is create these platforms that startups have to use to get to customers. So they all own these cloud-storage services. So Amazon is an example. If you want to store your media online - so, for example, all the movies that you watch on Netflix are actually stored on Amazon servers - so every time you use Netflix, Netflix is kind of paying Amazon for that kind of storage. Yeah. It's surprising, first of all, because they're such different companies. You wouldn't really know - you wouldn't really think that they would have that kind of connection. And then they're also competitors. Netflix makes original TV shows and so does Amazon. And so, you know, in this way, Netflix has this dependence on one of its competitors. There are lots of different examples of this though. There - you know, all app makers have to put their apps in the Apple app store or the Google app store. And when they sell in those apps, 30 percent of that money goes to Apple or Google. They all have to advertise on Facebook or Google to get customers because that's become the way to advertise on digital platforms. And so any new app - Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, all the other sort of smaller companies online - have to go through these five to get to their customers. And what ends up happening is that other companies succeed, but always these five benefit off of that success.”	Farhad Manjoo	26 October 2017

Rating

14 February 2023 Jun  An important economical business technique of companies to force people to use them daily.
So, you want to start a website but not use Microsoft? Get Apple, but Google works with Microsoft to track you. Fine, use Safari, and DuckDuckGo. O, DDG uses Bing. O, use Yahoo, fine. O, your work uses Skype. Don't use Skype. Use Linux with FaceTime. Well, we can still track you as Microsoft hosts a part of Netflix, Amazon and your data is in your bosses and professor's Office apps. Ok, ok, you use Linux, don't have a smartphone, or phone at all, no TV, and never got an ID? Even if you don't use Linux, we can merely track you by others walking or driving past you! Ha-ha!! Oh, you live in a forest Five Eyes covers the world in military satellites. We own you. Go to sleep.

Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.