Platforms

Since the word “platform” can be used in a variety of ways depending on the situation and the context, we’d like to start by defining how we’re using it in our study. We’ll utilize the definition of platforms provided by three academics, José van Dijck and Thomas Poell from the University of Amsterdam and David Nieborg from the University of Toronto. In their article “Platformisation” they suggest defining platforms as (re-) programmable digital infrastructures that facilitate and shape personalised interactions among end-users and complementors, organised through the systematic collection, algorithmic processing, monetisation, and circulation of data (Poell, Nieborg & Van Dijck, 2019).

Throughout this study course, we will focus on the five digital platforms: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft and their dominant position in the contemporary digital environment. These five tech giants, known as GAFAM, have billions of users and a market value of almost seven trillion dollars, making them the world’s largest digital platforms owned by most powerful internet companies. 

GAFAM founders and CEOs rank among the world’s richest persons. You will find many of them in the in TOP 10 of Bloomberg Billionaires Index 2022: executive chairman and former CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos (2), Microsoft’s founder Bill Gates (5), Google’s creators Larry Page (6) and Sergey Brin (8), former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (9). Despite being in this TOP 10 for a long time, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and CEO of Meta, has fallen from it in 2022, after shares of the company took a serious hit.

⚠️ The Bloomberg Billionaires Index is a daily ranking of the world’s richest people. The figures are updated at the close of every trading day in New York. These are data as of August, 2022, if you want to know the current situation, look here: https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/

We’ll now learn how GAFAM makes so much money, how these platforms work, how they affect society and what are the options for potential solutions. 

⬇️ REFERENCES:

• Poell, T. & Nieborg, D. & van Dijck, J. (2019). Platformisation. Internet Policy Review, 8(4). DOI: 10.14763/2019.4.1425
• Tambini, Damian and Moore, Martin, eds. (2018) Digital dominance: the power of Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple. Oxford University Press, New York, NY, USA.
• José van Dijck, Thomas Poell, and Martijn de Waal, 2018, The Platform Society: Public Values in a Connective World, Oxford University Press