Platforms, rents and labor. Effects on contemporary capitalist competition

Abstract

This article analyzes the origin, rise, and consolidation of platforms as fundamental organizational structures of contemporary cognitive and financiarized capitalism. Their economic omnipresence, their business model structured on data capture and  information mobilization are combined with aggressive business strategies of oligopoly  consolidation that erect extremely high barriers to the entry of new competitors into these markets. Privileged recipients of funding in the contemporary stage are also the major performers of innovation, research and development activities. In this aspect, the text addresses the dispute between established US platforms and the challenge of rising Chinese platforms, giving rise to an ongoing economic, technological, and geopolitical dispute on the global level.