Medium, un Commun en cours d’enclosure ?

La plateforme de blogging Medium, qui a pour l’instant refusé la publicité comme modèle économique, a récemment annoncé qu’elle mettrait en place un système d’abonnement à 5 dollars par mois pour se financer. Keith Parkins réagit dans un billet à cette annonce, en assimilant cette évolution à une forme d’enclosure du Commun que constitue Medium. Il propose à la place d’autres pistes d’évolution pour que Medium conserve cette nature de Commun, notamment en direction de l’Open Source et du Coopérativisme de plateforme (Platform Coop).

If Medium is to survive as a collaborative commons, there needs to be some radical thinking, charging for access is not the answer, it would be a retrograde step. Ev Williams may well say, someone has to provide the land, in this case the platform, on which the commoners exercise their commoners rights.

This may be true, in the past a lord or maybe held in common by the community, but think of innovative ways to provide the platform, open source software to which all can contribute, crowdfund to raise the funds, make an appeal, organise as an open coop, enable payment if readers wish to pay, but always retain free access.

Linux and its associated suite of programs runs the internet. Developers freely contribute, the software is free to use.

Post-capitalism, we are moving away from failed neo-liberalism, towards open coops, collaborative commons. Medium are going against the trend. It as though post-capitalism does not exist.

Source : Why enclosure of the Medium commons is wrong.