Platform Capitalism
by Nick Srnicek · first published 2016
10mentions
4recommended by
7HN commenters
2018–2025first – last mentioned
57% recommend43% neutral
What unites Google and Facebook, Apple and Microsoft, Siemens and GE, Uber and Airbnb? Across a wide range of sectors, these firms are transforming themselves into platforms: businesses that provide the hardware and software foundation for others to operate on. This transformation signals a major shift in how capitalist firms operate and how they interact with the rest of the economy: the emergence of 'platform capitalism'. This book critically examines these new business forms, tracing their genesis from the long downturn of the 1970s to the boom and bust of the 1990s and the aftershocks o
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…(surveillance capitalism) Virginia Eubanks Automating Inequality Sophie Brickman Baby Unplugged Cory Doctorow Radicalized Mike Monteiro Ruined by Design Nick Srnicek Platform Capitalism Paul Kingsnorth Life versus the machine Heather Burns Understanding Privacy Roger McNamee Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe Siva Vaidhyanathan Antisocial Media: How…
on “Are smartphones serving as adult pacifiers?” ↗…place as any, do you guys have any readings on 'winner take all'-ification and/or how to reverse it? Pop Culture Detective - Sociological Storytelling ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1-vPQKwXbY ) Platform Capitalism by Nick Srnicek ( http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509504862 )
on “The State of American Wages 2017” ↗…down, a snapshot is available at https://web.archive.org/web/20211207224925/http://ioo.coop/ ) https://platform.coop (Platform Cooperativism site) A good short read on the topic could be Nick Srnicek's Platform Capitalism; it covers concisely a lot of the economics involved.
on “Show HN: Slow Social, a social network built for friends, not influencers” ↗A good book on why those capitalist Platforms are hiring and investing a lot on becoming "the most perfect platform" is Nick Srnicek's Pltaform Capitalism ( https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Platform+Capitalism-p-9781509504... ) Most of their profitability comes from becoming a de facto monopoly / middle-man so they will attempt to gain as much market share as aggressively as possible. (Including sacrificing…
on “Crime App 'Citizen' Lays Off Dozens of Employees” ↗…industries cycle from openness to centralized "information empires" https://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Rise-Information-Empire... == Technology & platforms (contemporary centralization) Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism (2017): explains how platform business models + data/network effects produce concentration https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Platform+Capitalism-p-9781509504... == When decentralization can work Elinor Ostrom,…
on “Are we decentralized yet?” ↗…https://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/3504/The-StackOn-Soft... The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=56791 Platform Capitalism https://www.wiley.com/en-in/Platform+Capitalism-p-9781509504...
on “LLMs can't perform "genuine logical reasoning," Apple researchers suggest” ↗I think this idea is explored in Srncinek's book "Platform Capitalism" https://www.amazon.com/Platform-Capitalism-Theory-Redux-Srni...
on “Tech company patterns” ↗…with supremely anticompetitive behavior) behave different than monopolies. There are many authors that have been exploring the economic aspect of platforms. As such nowadays that phenomenon is know as "platform capitalism" in literature due to Nick Srnicek's 2016 Polity book of the same name. [1] [1]: https://theceme.org/richard-godden-platform-capitalism-nick-...
on “Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case” ↗The introduction of Platform Capitalism to the music industry through streaming services and online media brands more or less reoriented the music industry’s function of supply and quality of demand by flooding the market with valueless content…
on “Platform capitalism devalued the music industry” ↗The story is not about the Olympians. It's about Platformization (+ Datafication + Finacialization). When Platform Capitalism the book came out, feels like a decade ago, literally everyone agreed its Unsustainable. Its not just about how well your mindless dumbfuck platform milks the consumer and producer simultaneously. Its…
on “Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)” ↗