The early Internet was a lawless place, populated by scam artists who made buying or selling anything online risky business.

Then Amazon, eBay, Upwork, and Apple established secure digital platforms for selling physical goods, crowdsourcing labour, and downloading apps. These tech giants have gone on to rule the Internet like autocrats. How did this happen? How did users and workers become the hapless subjects of online economic empires? The Internet was supposed to liberate us from powerful institutions. In this talk, digital economy expert Vili Lehdonvirta will explore the rise of the platform economy into statelike dominance over our lives and propose a new way forward.

This is a joint event with the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Work.