Blog Archives

Blockchain technology: a new (r)evolution in the digital economy

Posted on 27/01/2016 by Open Thoughts — 1 Comment ↓

By Primavera De Filippi, researcher, Centre d’Études et de Recherches de Science Administrative, CNRS-Université Paris II.

Remember the world, back in the 90’s? Before the Internet had invaded pretty much every aspect of our lives? It was back then quite difficult — if not impossible — to foresee that one day, not too far away, people would be able to communicate directly with one another, that they would be able to broadcast themselves to the world and interact in a peer-to-peer fashion, bypassing most of the intermediaries of that time.

This marked the beginning of a new paradigm shift in the way people communicate — the beginning of a digital revolution characterised by a process of decentralization and disintermediation. With the Internet, traditional media operators, such as publishers and broadcasters, have been progressively displaced by a more distributed network of players, relying on emerging information and communication technologies in order to provide new opportunities for people to receive and impart information.

Dividing the Wealth – Do peer networks like Airbnb distribute value fairly?

Posted on 18/11/2015 by Open Thoughts — No Comments ↓

By Robin Chase, author of Peers Inc; co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar¹.

The ideal of capitalism I perceived as a child seems a far cry from what I understand today. American capitalism has moved from an industrial path that grew a middle class to one that seems to be increasingly taking the ugliest, most extractive form, reversing those gains.

In economist Thomas Piketty’s 2014 bestselling Capital in the 21st Century, his analysis found that the top 10 percent of Americans in 2010 owned 70 percent of the capital, trending toward the extreme capital inequality last observed in 1910 monarchical Europe. In the fall 2014 issue of the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Pavlina R. Tcherneva, an economist at Bard College, updated Piketty’s data through 2012 and looked at which groups got the benefits of economic expansion.

Tagged with: Airbnb, blockchain, capitalism, investment, Pavlina R. Tcherneva, Peers Inc, platforms, sharing economy, Thomas Piketty, value, Zipcar
Posted in Open Thoughts 2014

Open science and the environmental movement

Posted on 21/10/2015 by Open Thoughts — No Comments ↓

By Shannon Dosemagen, co-founder and Executive Director of Public Lab.

Historically, environmental monitoring in the U.S. is by industrial polluters and those responsible for regulating and enforcing environmental laws. This leaves little room for engagement with those who are affected by the environmental health decisions being made about their communities.

The vision behind Public Lab is a community driven collaborative model that creates the physical means for independent people and organizations to engage in environmental data collection and the scientific research process.

Tagged with: activism, analysis, communities, data collection, environment monitoring, environmental movement, knowledge, open collaboration, platforms, Public Lab, science, sharing, tools, transparency
Posted in Open Thoughts 2014

The citizen producer at the epicenter of the P2P revolution

Posted on 07/10/2015 by Open Thoughts — No Comments ↓

By Albert Cañigueral, founder of ConsumoColaborativo and OuiShare Connector in Barcelona (Spain).

Platforms are eating the world

Never before in human history has been as simple as today to coordinate peers at a massive scale. Jeremy Heimans calls it the “new power” and we see new power all around us. Wikipedia is a prime example of this.

The same basic capabilities are applied to the co-creation and exchange of, not only information, but goods, services, money, value, etc. Sharing economy, collaborative consumption, collaborative economy, p2p economy, etc. you can pick your favorite term to describe this scenario where people are empowered to get directly what they need from each other. Traditional businesses are being disrupted by coordinated collaboration among the people formerly known as “customers”. The genie is clearly out of the bottle and won’t be put back anytime soon.