What is a platform?

In layman terms, digital platforms are networked software environments that offer disparate services and affordances. They operate by mediating between the supply and demand of services, or between people seeking informal sociality and entertainment. While broadly accurate and easy to grasp, this definition is clearly insufficient, as it encompasses very diverse enterprises operating in different contexts: social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, content creation platforms like YouTube, Ride-share platforms like UBER and of course explicitly educational platforms like Khan Academy, Coursera and Google Classroom. As it is often the case, economic models help create helpful categories that can be used across sectors. These models are not mutually exclusive, and indeed they often coexist. Nonetheless, they help us draw some broad outlines within which we can locate our elusive object of analysis. They are as follows:

1. Taking a cut: the platform captures a fraction of the value generated in the transactions between providers and seekers of a service.
2. Loss leading: a valuable service (e.g., a well-designed webmail service like Gmail) is offered for free, which leads to universal adoption of other services or functionalities that belong to a broader, proprietary platform ecosystem. Tailored ‘premium’ functionalities are then developed and sold.  
3. ‘monetising’ data: personal data are captured through algorithmic surveillance and sold for marketing purposes, which in most cases means capturing and selling personal information to enable personalised advertising.
4. Philanthropy: the platform relies entirely or partly on private donations – often from wealthy organisations or individuals who play prominent roles in the technology sector.