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That there is an eternity of technology, In 2016 and 2017, one of us helped organize a shareholder campaign On Twitter, asking the platform to explore strategies for accessing its users co-owners of the company. Twitter was then entertaining shopping offers from Disney and Salesforce. For those of us in the campaign, it was wrong to think that a platform of such personal and political importance, which attracted a love-hate devotion to users, was just a commodity to be bought and sold. Technological press covered our campaign but mostly has it as a quixote. We presented our proposal at the annual meeting on Twitter, and it gained a few percentage points from the shareholder’s vote.
Soon, in 2018, Uber and Airbnb he wrote letters It seemed similar to what we asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to ask on Twitter: to allow the company to give equity to users — drivers and hosts, respectively. Regardless of what the law considers (or should be) as an employee, contractor, or customer, they are platform-based people, and platform-based people. Somehow, what seemed utopian in 2017 was now the corporate strategy of the biggest concert platforms. Without much fuss, user ownership was quietly emerging as an industry trend.
Airbnb letter he made the reasoning clear: “Aligning incentives between companies in the shared economy and participants would benefit both.” Platforms can gain greater loyalty from users who might otherwise go on a whim and go. Equity rewards, on the other hand, can cut the benefits of user ownership of the business, usually for elite employees or for people who already have the wealth to invest.
We don’t have to trust this company, which has long had ambivalent relationships with the public good. But the truth is that a more widespread ownership of the platform economy could be a game changer. In Compliance, Alec MacGillis quotes how Amazon has changed America’s new book, citing former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich: If Amazon had a quarter of its employees, like Sears once, it could have more than $ 400,000 in stock in an average warehouse in 2020 .
Equity grants may also have control rights over the corporate strategy. For social media platforms, for example, user owners may request restrictions on the use of their personal data, greater control over what appears on their feeds, and a voice to complete content moderation policies. Think of Facebook’s oversight committee, but with members chosen by users and more meaningful power.
The SEC did not immediately approve the request by Airbnb and Uber to provide equity to users; so each company made solutions. Uber grants awarded to loyal drivers, with the option to purchase shares in the 2019 public offering. Airbnb, its pandemic returns are hurting many hosts, he announced There are two fantastic types of ownership before it goes public in 2020: the “endowment” of the company’s shares to pay the hosts, and the host advisory committee to inform the company of its decisions. It looks like the companies were serious. And it seems to come from around the SEC; at the end of last year, the committee proposed allowing concert companies to pay 15% of equity compensation.
As the Behemoth platform is working on schemes to share their equity, we’ve been exploring and supporting a parallel movement: a new startup wave from the start-up phases. Some are “platform cooperatives,” like the new driver-owned service in New York City Drivers’ Cooperative, and Kinfolk, a consumer cooperative that includes brands with blacks. Instead of the dramatic returns that companies that want “unicorn” promise to wealthy investors, these “zebra”Startups prioritize benefits for marginalized communities. Others, like the software developer’s concert platform Gitcoin, are using blockchain technology to share property through cryptographic tokens rather than non-old stocks.
Technology investors typically expect startups to get two “outputs,” an IPO or one type of purchase. What if the platform companies could work towards “going out into the community”? What if co-ownership is what long-term users expect? . Than swarming chaos GameStop craze, this approach can promote true loyalty, responsibility and shared wealth.
In one new article to do Georgetown Law Technology Review, we have specified several ways how “leaving the community“It could work. These strategies are based on long-standing examples, from the electric cooperatives that feed much of rural America to the Employee Share Ownership Plan that currently serves about 14 million workers in the United States. We also explore new opportunities created by decentralized social networks and blockchain technologies.
Some pioneers are implementing this. A few years ago, rural Colorado-based tech hacker Noon left the “equity crowdfunding” campaign (attended by Nathan) to leave Medium.com and use it to build its platform through user investments. Groupmuse, a platform for chamber music house concerts, has become the property of the staff it is also moving owned by the musician.
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