The Rise of the Platform Economy
Platforms and the cloud, an essential part of what has been called the “third globalization,” reconfigure globalization itself. These digital platforms are diverse in function and structure. Together they are provoking reorganization of a wide variety of markets, work arrangements, and ultimately value creation and capture.
…the term “platform economy,” or “digital platform economy,” a more neutral term encompasses a growing number of digitally enabled activities in business, politics, and social interaction. If the industrial revolution was organized around the factory, today’s changes are organized around these digital platforms, loosely defined. In the era of the platform, the future remains open. Answers to crucial questions are for the moment unknowable. The answers depend on our choices, not just on the technology. For example, will cloud technologies and the platform-driven economic reorganization they cause drive the productivity growth on which sustained real income improvement occurs? Will these reorganizations destroy jobs or reduce the required skill levels?
Reading Development 