Research on the platform economy

Which opportunities do cooperative models and blockchain technology offer to the platform economy? What are other potential pathways toward a more sustainable platform economy? 

Today, new digital platforms for sharing, swapping and other ways of collaborative consumption are widely associated with positive economic, ecological and social effects. At the same time, existing platforms like Airbnb and Uber are increasingly criticized in public debate for having negative effects on people, local economies and our planet. As a counter model, new decentral models combining alternative organizational forms (such as platform cooperatives) and new technologies (such as Blockchain technology) are discussed and tested. These and other alternative models promise to better reach social-ecological goals and offer potential to transform the sharing and platform economy. 

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News

 
On February 25, 2018 newspaper ZEIT released an interview with economist Nick Srnicek who argues that platforms such as Amazone, Google and Facebook have a natural tendency to create monopolies providing them with strong market power.
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After a successful event in 2017, the two days "Open Platform Cooperatives" conference will be back on the 26th-27th of July 2018
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In this article Jonas Pentzien and his colleagues from the research project PeerSharing pose the question if peer-to-peer sharing is sustainable.
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Members of the junior research group platforms2share contribute to the final conference of PeerSharing
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Events

 

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About Us
Platforms under governmetnal control?
Research Topics
Prof. Dr. Dominika Wruk
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Life Cycle Assessment of the Sharing Economy: Sharing on Its Own does not Help the Environment
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Sharing as a Means to a Sustainable Economy?