They were supposed to liberate us. They were supposed to empower us. And in some ways, they've done some part of that. But the mega-platforms-- Google, Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, Apple, Microsoft and UBER, in particular, are also very dangerous to our future and incredibly exploitive. They are profoundly top down in doling out services and controlling data.

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They were supposed to liberate us. They were supposed to empower us.

And in some ways, they've done some part of that.

But the mega-platforms-- Google, Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, Apple, Microsoft and UBER, in particular, are also very dangerous to our future and incredibly exploitive. They are profoundly top down in doling out services and controlling data.

Amazon's Mechanical Turk allows workers to paid a few dollars an hour, and allows employers to not pay workers at all. And of course, Amazon is destroying the brick and mortar retail industry, killing tens of thousands of small businesses and some large ones, like Sears, KMart, Macys, and more.

Google and Facebook are influencing who sees what news, or other content, with zero transparency as to how they make decisions.

Uber has had tens of thousands of drivers protest against their algorithm driven policies.

Worse, all of the megaplatforms are amassing huge troves of data from users, that they are using to build proprietary databases that only they get to use.

The thing is, these megaplatforms do provide a lot of strong, valuable resources, from search, email, user feedback on products and so much more.

There's another, better way to think about platforms.

It's called platform cooperativism-- the application of the idea of co-op, or worker or food co-op to big platforms and to sharing resources.

I attended the first conference to explore the idea was held two years ago. A lot of good ideas were offered and the beginning efforts of the movement were showcased.

Yesterday, I attended the third annual Platform Co-op conference. People came from all over the world to report on progress in building the digital and cooperation infrastructure to support worker owned or worker supporting bottom up worker business and projects. They include local competition for UBER, local platforms to support artists, patient care workers, domestic workers.

The are many advantages. One presenter reported that while ninety percent of small businesses close after five years, 90% of worker owned co-op businesses are still operating after ten years. Workers make twice as much money in co-ops and, in co-ops in the insurance industry, women are 900% more likely to be in leadership positions.

Another presenter discussed CoWorker.org, where co-workers for big companies can coordinate together to build cooperation, power and influence. The biggest group includes about 40,000 Starbucks Barristas. This is a great Bottom up idea for helping empower employees using a platform.

I've barely touched upon the danger and malignancy of the megaplatforms, and they are getting worse and more powerful. It is essential that the platform cooperativism movement, and the cooperative movement in general gain ground. But only 24% of the population have a clue what a cooperative is, let alone platform cooperatives.

The thing is, humans have known ALL about cooperativism. That's the Bottom up way we lived before civilization brought us Top down hierarchy, domination, centralization, ownership, secrecy, exploitation. We lived in Bottom up hunter gatherer bands where resources, wisdom, knowledge and responsibilities were shared, where people reflexively took care of each other. They basically functioned as a hunter-gatherer co-op.

Humans evolved to be that way over millions of years, so, we still have those co-op genes, though many have been repressed by western civilization the industrialized world.

Check out the links on the third annual Platform Co-op conference pages. And check out the #PlatformCoop Twitter hash tag. Learn more about Platform Cooperativism. It's important and will play an essential part in the battle to take back the world from neoliberal top down dominators.

Authors Bio:

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect, connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

He is the co-founder of the Arc of Justice Alliance a platform designed to help organizations and individuals working for justice and a better world to discover each other and share resources and strategies, with the hopes that this will build their power.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune 500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful people on his Bottom Up Radio Show, and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

more detailed bio:

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.

Rob Kall Wikipedia Page

Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel

Rob Kall/OpEdNews Bottom Up YouTube video channel

Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.

Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.

To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.

For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.

Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

Talk Nation Radio interview by David Swanson: Rob Kall on Bottom-Up Governance June, 2017

Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..

To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.

Follow Rob on Twitter & Facebook.

His quotes are here

Rob's articles express his personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.

Join the conversation:

On facebook at Rob Kall's Bottom-up The Connection Revolution

and at Google Groups listserve Bottom-up Top-down conversation