This week we discussed the importance of platforms and how they are mediums for bringing multiple groups together. From the readings we were able to gather that platforms were essentially intermediaries that present a service not only to users but also to advertisers, major media producers it hopes to have as partners, and policymakers. From a business perspective, this interception of different ideas, products, and consumers is idea because it gives nearly everything the potential for monetization. Youtube gives us the ability to share our experiences and opinions with others but if we are able to gather a large enough fan-base, we can profit from it.
Amazon’s recent partnership with UMass raised many questions concerning their long term agenda. We discussed the negative impact that it would have on local independent bookstores and how much power they would have over the students once they cornered the market. Since the demand for books will always be high and they control the supply, they have the ability to dictate the prices. Their promises of cheap textbooks isn’t saying much considering how expensive the Textbook Annex was. Much like the loopholes in the Google privacy contracts, I would not be surprised if Amazon set itself up for something sinister in the future (Kindle related perhaps?). All you need to do is look at the way they treat their workers to get a sense of the type of corporation they are (workers don’t get paid for the extra hour they spend waiting in line to punch out, lack of consistent hours for long term employees, job security, etc.) There was also the incident in April 2009 where they labeled gay and lesbian books as “pornographic” and pulled them from the sales rankings.
According to the “Age of Platforms”, the “Gang of Four” (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google) aren’t considered monopolies due to pricing power, competition, and elastic demands. Pricing power refers to the alternative companies that are available to the consumer to purchase from if they don’t agree with a certain price. Competition refers to a company’s ability to join the market (whether or not there are barriers to entry). Elasticity of demands refers how responsive consumers are to price changes. While Amazon may not be a monopoly in the traditional sense, there is no denying the power of its influence. Its “jack of all trades” approach makes it awfully close to one and ensures that it will be a major player for quite some time. It forces users to make an account in order to participate and everyone uses it out of convenience which is why its so popular. Since it is such a powerhouse, it is able to buy out upcoming companies and integrate their services into the company. CreateSpace is a great example of this. Before being bought out, BookSurge allowed customers to self-publish their writings in the form of hardcovers or ebooks. Amazon took a cut of the profit and everyone won. After being rebranded, Amazon created the notion of “Amazon celebrities” which gave everyday people like you and me an opportunity to share our ideas. Platforms revolve around the idea of collaboration. Through planks such as CreateSpace, the Network Effect is created which increases the popularity of the platform. These companies try to sell the illusion that we hold the power to change platforms, and in a sense we do, but only a small scale. As much as we like to think that the Internet is a democracy, we are still subject to their terms and conditions and other nuances which keep the power away from the people and in the corporation. As the convenience factor grows, so does the invasion of privacy. It will only get harder to say no as time goes on.
