Cooperative platforms cannot compete with entrenched data monopolies

Evidence

Some have argued that we might fight these monopolistic trends by building up cooperative platforms. Yet all the traditional problems of coops (e.g. the necessity of self-exploitation under capitalist social relations) are made even worse by the monopolistic nature of platforms, the dominance of network effects, and the vast resources behind these companies. Even if all its software were made open-source, a platform like Facebook would still have the weight of its existing data, network effects, and financial resources to fight off any coop rival. — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 100

Categorization

• XREF: Counterweights the optimistic ‘platform cooperativism’ movement; relevant when comparing responses to surveillance capitalism (Zuboff’s regulation/resistance vs Srnicek’s state/public-platform route). — connects to: Reforming individual platforms within a system replicates rather than challenges its foundations — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 586; Publicly owned platforms could rival corporate platform control. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 1201; Platform monopolies are also monopsonies over the data users produce — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 174 (+9 more)

Related

• Publicly owned platforms could rival corporate platform control. (similarity 0.84)
• Network effects embed monopoly tendencies directly into platform structure (similarity 0.82)
• Platform monopolies are also monopsonies over the data users produce (similarity 0.81)
• Traditional antitrust remedies are structurally impossible for cloud platforms (similarity 0.80)
• Publicly owned data platforms could replace corporate ones as utilities (similarity 0.80)
• Platform companies converge into similar forms as they compete for the same data. (similarity 0.80)
• Platform competition shifts from price to data as the competitive criterion (similarity 0.80)
• Platforms remain bound to capitalist competition and profitability despite anti-capitalist rhetoric (similarity 0.79)
• Platform mediation is worse than monopoly because it blocks buyer coordination entirely (similarity 0.79)
• A platform’s structural position gives it privileged access to record interactions (similarity 0.79)
• Competition among platforms produces four systemic tendencies in the economy (similarity 0.79)
• Falling manufacturing profits drove capitalism toward data extraction via platform monopolies (similarity 0.78)
• Platform power rests on structural influence over data, not revenue size. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Platforms look like markets but are centralized fiefs owned by algorithms #expands (0.82) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 868
• Individual data-rights enforcement cannot succeed without collective action #corroborates (0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1548
• Traditional antitrust remedies are structurally impossible for cloud platforms #corroborates (0.75) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 668
• Cooperative equilibria are no likelier than noncooperative ones without belief restrictions #corroborates (0.72) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2804