The countermovement in the digital economy:

From reification to global resilience1

Philippe Eynaud
Sorbonne Business School, Université Paris 1,
philippe.eynaud@iae.pantheonsorbonne.fr

Corinne Vercher-Chaptal
Université Sorbonne-Paris Nord, CEPN,
vercher@univ-paris13.fr

Prosper Wanner
Université Paris Diderot,
prosperwanner@gmail.com

Abstract: Bolstered by powerful network effects, some platforms enjoy a quasi-monopolistic

position and threaten individual freedoms. This research aims to observe the alternatives to
these merchant platforms with the emergence of digital platforms in the countermovement and
the conditions for their sustainable integration in the economic landscape. The paper presents
and analyses two field cases and enables to see how two recognised forms critical of capitalism
– the social economy and the solidarity economy – were able to be translated in the alternative
digital world. This takes concrete form in the expression of a twofold critique: the first shows
the opposition to a relationship of domination stemming from the instrumentation of a market
logic; the second, in the current context of acceleration and reification, rests on a renewed
attention to the world, challenges the place and role of digital technologies, and gives a central
place on the platform to residents, citizen movements, local production and currencies, cultural
rights and the non-human.

Keywords: Platform, cooperativism, countermovement, digital economy, resilience

1
This paper is based on the research programme, TAPAS (There are Platforms as Alternatives), jointly funded by the DREES (the French
Ministry of Solidarity and Health) and DARES in the framework of their joint call for projects Formes d’économie collaborative et protection
sociale (Forms of the sharing economy and social protection).

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The accelerating pace of the world has already been analysed in depth by studies of technology,
its associated risks and the reification of the world it has spawned (Virilio, 1977; Rosa, 2013).
Yet, within this general phenomenon, it seems to us that the digital transformation deserves
particular attention given the new reach of the economic and societal upheavals it induces
(Tapscott, 2014). An analysis of the effects of the covid-19 pandemic shows that e-commerce
actors of the “pure player” type have largely succeeded in taking advantage of the situation
(WTO, 2020). Their current hegemony shows an acceleration within the overall acceleration
(OECD, 2020). Viewing themselves as disruptive actors, these pure players claim to have a
superior economic model and to belong to the collaborative economy. Relying on the existence
of two-sided markets, these companies (known as platforms) propose to manage and execute
the transactions on their sites in exchange for a commission. They are based on a digital
infrastructure that enables them not only to act as an intermediary between different groups of
users (clients, advertisers, producers, suppliers), but also to benefit from a privileged access to
the data that is mainly collected using systems that monitor the users’ online activities (tracking,
cookies, etc.). These data feed into user matching algorithms and, when analysed, enable
companies to set up “nudges” or systems that exploit user behaviour. Bolstered by powerful
network effects, some platforms enjoy a quasi-monopolistic position and threaten individual
freedoms (Cardon, 2015). As a result, it seems salient to observe the alternatives to these
merchant platforms.

According to Polanyi (1944, 1977), economic history exhibits a double movement. He argues
that any shift towards economic liberalisation comes up against a countermovement. This builds
up as a reaction to the damage incurred by the liberalising movement and seeks to protect
society from market abuses. It grows out of acts of resistance by actors engaged in social
struggles. The effects of the countermovement are far from certain and blissful optimism should
be avoided (Burawoy, 2010). They mainly depend on the societal forces involved and the
orientation of the political elites and these actors’ ability to unite around a counter-project
(Fraser, 2016). In doing so, according to the Polanyian framework, it can be hypothesised that
a counter-project can emerge in initiatives likely to promote an embeddedness of the economy
(Vercher-Chaptal, 2021). We consider the Polanyian framework especially relevant for
addressing questions related to the digital economy. The link between the two fields had been
outlined by Karl Polanyi himself, as he had planned to publish (in collaboration with Abraham
Rotstein) a sequel to his book The Great Transformation titled Freedom and Technology. In
the preparatory drafts for this sequel, the authors question the massive diffusion of information
by the new electronic media, and underline that “while it was thus possible to believe, in the
1950s, that the market has been put back into its social and political ‘box’, the mastery of
technological innovations tended to escape all control and directly threatened the very existence
of freedom of all humankind”2 (Berthoud, Busino, 1995, p.287). He thus considered that
acceleration combined with the dissemination of these technical advances would clearly impact
the structuring of our economic models. The theoretical framework of the great transformation
thus seeded the analyses of the great acceleration (Marechal, 2017; Steinberg, 2009). Our
research explores the practices of digital actors in this countermovement and aims to show how
these practices are transpositions and digitalised forms of critique (Boullier, 2018). For this, we
rely on a comparative study of two platforms in the travel sector: Fairbnb (FBB) and Les
Oiseaux de Passage (LODP). We analyse their positionings and their operating choices to
identify their common points and examine their differentiated strategies (see Tables 1 and 2 in

2
The original French of direct quotations in this paper has been translated into English by the translator of the paper.

2
the Appendix). In this way, we try to determine the factors contributing to the emergence of
digital platforms in the countermovement and the conditions for their sustainable integration in
the economic landscape. After setting out the conceptual framework for our reflection, the paper
presents and analyses two field cases and puts our findings into perspective in light of the notion
of platform associationism and its reach.

1 - The countermovement in the digital economy

One of the early prominent figures of the countermovement in the digital economy is the Free
Software Foundation (FSF). This has certainly been a key player in the advent and extension
of free software. It laid the foundations for the sharing of software source codes in reaction to
the restrictions imposed by the use of proprietary codes (Broca, 2018): in a capitalist society,
freely share the ownership of a manufacturing secret. However, for platforms, the question of
countermovement is situated at a different level. The characteristic of platform-companies is
that they own none of the economic assets required for the production of the services they
propose. This means that platform-companies are often approached on the premise that they
belong to a sharing economy. This designation is not without ambiguity (Frenken and Schor,
2017). There are in fact two different types of platform-companies (Carballa-Smichowski and
Coriat, 2017). The first and best-known involves actors whose main motivation is profit. They
base their economic power on exploiting data and labour (Casilli, 2015, 2019; Broca, 2017).
As such, they open up a new space for surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2019). The second type
consists of actors that seek to distance themselves from such practices and whose mission is to
propose a model of platforms likely to combine economic and social sustainability in line with
the general interest (Fuster Morell, 2018; Eynaud and França Filho, 2019). We focus on this
second type and see how its emergence can be considered as the transposition of a
countermovement likely to produce another interpretation of the sharing economy at a
performative level (Brisset, 2012).

Zealots of the sharing economy often tend to employ a “discourse of trendiness, technological
sophistication, progress and innovation. However, this characterization betrays both class and
race myopia, as well as what historians call ‘presentism’, or blindness to the past” (Frenken and
Schor, 2017: p.4). As a result, they forget that the sharing economy is very old. There is a
historical legacy that can be explored around this question, and the Polanyian approach is thus
highly useful. This does not mean, however, that the digital-based sharing economy is merely
a reproduction of the past. One forceful and deeply innovative initiative of platform-companies
is the scale effect they play on by broadening the notion of sharing beyond family, friends and
neighbours. These more extensive relationships allow for a wider scope of action than what
Tönnies (2010) calls blood, geographic and spiritual communities, to reach society as a whole.
This extension thus operates through a primary sociality founded on ties of affection and
through attachment to a secondary sociality based on interest. This broadening of sharing
beyond primary sociality is based on specific technical systems. Platforms manage the risk of
opening the sphere of sharing to all through systems dedicated to ratings and reputation. The
platform-company thus relies on the existence of a technical ecosystem in order to gather all
economic actors into a cooperation-based relationship (Evans and Gawer, 2016). Yet, ratings
and reputation pertain to platform users and not to the way the platform is managed. Enlarging
the perimeter is achieved at the cost of the user’s social control over the operator that allows
contacts to be established.

As Polanyi (1944, 1977) shows, countermovement actors are working, by definition, against
liberal tendencies by seeking to re-embed the economy in the social sphere and, at the same

3
time, by fighting against the commodification of the world. Historically, the countermovement
developed during the 19th century around two organisational responses described by Tönnies:
the cooperative, conceived as a “community-type grouping” and the association as a “society-
type grouping” (Tönnies, 2010, p.239). Behind these two forms, two countermovement trends
are being played out. The first is built around historic actors linked to social struggles, such as
the cooperatives, mutual societies and management associations, which defined the field of
social economy. It illustrates the call to re-embed the economy by assigning the dual status of
employee and shareholder to an organisation’s workers so that they can participate in decisions
that impact the steering of the organisation employing them. It seeks to reconcile
entrepreneurship and employee protection through the interplay of cooperative democracy
(Draperi, 2019). The second trend is not defined by its form, or by specific statutes, but supports
the goal of democratising the economy very extensively. As such, it aims to work with social
movements and citizen collectives, as well as employees. It refuses to replicate or compete with
the forms of the dominant economy. It belongs rather to the solidarity economy, which aspires
to becoming a contemporary revival of the original associationist movement (Laville, 2020).
Below we analyse the countermovement in the digital economy through the prism of this
classification.

11 - Platform cooperativism

The term “platform cooperativism” was conceptualised by Scholz (2014, 2017) in order to
critique platform capitalism and propose an alternative. Scholz defines the platform as an
environment in which intermediaries are able to offer services or access to content. When
capitalistic, these platforms are based on a model designed to exploit workers and appropriate
the data collected.

Conversely, platform cooperativism derives from a democratic model of shared ownership. The
concept encompasses three ambitions. The first aims to clone the technology of existing
capitalist platform-companies. This requires a strong commitment to technology: “The co-
operative movement needs to come to terms with 21st century technologies.”(Scholz, 2014, p.
26). The second is to be steered by groups seeking their members’ emancipation (unions,
municipalities, salaried employees, beneficiaries of services, etc.). Thus, “One of the central
questions [of cooperative governance]… is how its abuses of power can be kept at bay.” (Ibid,
p. 24). The third ambition is that profits be enjoyed by all, not simply a minority. For this, things
need to be clear and rest on “collective decision-making, conflict resolution, consensus
building, and the managing of shares and funds in a transparent manner” (Ibid, p. 24).

But this determination to open up also needs to involve external cooperative relations since
alliances between cooperatives are crucial. They need to be based on “on standards, a
commitment to the open commons, shared strategies, goals, and values” (Ibid, p. 21). All of
these ambitions are presented as an important guarantee for protecting workers against the
slippages generally seen with capitalist platform-companies. According to Scholz, cooperative
platforms provide more stable jobs with better social coverage than the other platform-
companies. However, competitive pressure exists and this type of security may be difficult to
uphold. Nonetheless, this points to a key element that differentiates cooperative platforms:
“Politicians and platform owners have been promising social protections, access, and privacy,
but we are demanding ownership” (Ibid, p. 27). Accordingly, Scholz outlines ten principles of
platform cooperativism: ownership, a decent pay and income security, transparency and data
portability, appreciation and acknowledgement, co-determined work, a protective legal
framework, portable worker protections and benefits, protection against arbitrary behaviour,

4
rejection of excessive workplace surveillance, and the right to log off (Ibid pp20-22). These
principles are drawn from the cooperative model in its entirety. This means that members enjoy
the dual status of beneficiaries and shareholders and thus take part in decision-making that
directly concerns them. The strength of platform cooperatives thus lies in their ability to gather
together like-minded people. In April 2021, the Platform Cooperativism Consortium3, co-
founded by Scholz, listed 503 platform cooperatives spread across 33 countries around the
globe.

12 - Platform associationism

The strength of platform cooperativism lies in the fact that it has transposed the cooperative
project into cyberspace. In this respect, platform cooperativism appears to be in step with the
field of the social economy. However, the countermovement in the digital economy is not
limited to this single response alone. There is also what we call “platform associationism”,
which denotes digital initiatives that are linked with the solidarity economy. We thus define
them as platforms where “all their activities contribute to democratising the economy by
building on citizen engagement” (Chanial, Laville, 2001: p.30). We characterise these platforms
on the basis of their societal ambition and their goal for institutional change (Faik, Barrett,
Oborn, 2020; Youmans, York, 2012). Given the scarcity of literature on the subject, we do not
attempt to prejudge the precise forms that these platforms can take. Yet, by analogy with the
solidarity economy, we consider it to be “a protest against the monopoly of expression held by
the elites” and as an opportunity for “eruption into the debate of groups and individuals who
had not been invited and react against their exclusion” (Laville, 2020; p.72). We hypothesise
that their driving force is social inventiveness and that their objective is not so much the
performance-based management of what exists but rather to strengthen “society’s capacity to
resist in the face of social atomisation” (Chanial, Laville, 2001; p.33). In this framework,
processes are not carved in stone.

The platforms in this second category will be open to experimentation and improvisation
(Ciborra, 1996). The key principle of innovation is that it is not simply technological.
Technology is above all social and has the goal of emancipation (Castells, 2001; Kalantzis-
Cope, Gherab-Martin, 2011). Another difference of the platform associationism model could
be described as a greater openness to multi-stakeholder governance. We could perhaps find
users, volunteers, beneficiaries, residents, financiers, local partners governing alongside
workers.

Pursuing the analogy with the solidarity economy, platform associationism is multi-stakeholder
by nature and supports a locally based public space. Its mission is to give voice to the counter-
power (de Rosnay, 2006) of militants (Blondeau, 2007) and to work with social movements
(Castells, 2013). Joining the platform is not prompted by self-interest but by a voluntary
engagement expressed within the framework of reciprocity between citizens (Castells, 2013)
and by the desire for democratic intermediation (Badouard, 2020).

2 - Case study: digital platforms and the travel sector

Our field study aims for a better approach to the solidarity goal of the platforms that participate
in a countermovement by empirically verifying that our above-described distinction between
platform cooperativism and platform associationism does indeed exist. The travel sector was

3
https://platform.coop/

5
chosen due to its by specific characteristics. For many years, it has shown a strong propensity
for data management and the sector has long practised user-profiling. The latter practice helped
lay the ground for the intensive use of information technology.

It could thus be thought that tourism has helped to shape and prepare the way for Internet e-
tourism. The logics of user-profiling (Passenger Name Record), commission-taking,
centralising and comparing offers (Central Reservation System), dynamic pricing (Yield
Management), intermediation (Tour Operator) and global management (Global Distribution
System) were developed by the tourist system long before the Internet appeared. Like travelling
salesmen, who were the precursors of Amazon and Ebay (Bartolomei, Lemercier and
Marzagalli, 2012), this electronic intermediation was operating long before Internet appeared
and seems to have laid the ground for today’s e-tourism (Bessières, 1997; Victor, 2007). This
is certainly what facilitated the arrival of a major American player in the sector: Airbnb.

Formerly called AirBed & Breakfast,4 Airbnb is a short-term rental platform founded in 2008
in San Francisco. It quickly became a global success and within a few years one of the leaders
of the online short-stay tourist rental business. The Wall Street Journal ranked it second for the
number of nights sold globally in the first quarter of 2019, with 91 million nights sold, and first
for the growth in nights sold.5 In 2019, Airbnb had over 150 million users and more than 7
million available homes in 220 countries, marking up a 4.7 billion dollar turnover. Initially
positioned as a person-to-person sharing platform, Airbnb is increasingly accused of
contributing to housing shortages in large cities. As a result, city authorities have introduced
measures to control and regulate home-sharing, court cases have taken place, and
countermovement actors have organised themselves to propose alternatives. Many digital
platforms propose alternative forms of travel (slow tourism, ecotourism, sustainable tourism)
or non-monetised forms (couch-surfing, home exchange, woofing). Among these initiatives,
FBB and LODP are the only two hospitality platforms members of the Platform Cooperativism
Consortium.6 Others have chosen the start-up model, which, , has sometimes sparked strong
reactions from their users in the non-market sector regarding the monetisation of the
exchanges.7

21 - Research methodology

The empirical study was based on these two emergent digital platforms, which are examples of
countermovement in the travel sector. Our data analysis work relied on longitudinal action-
research. The data collection methodology is grounded on 12 semi-directive interviews and
numerous secondary data. The interviews were recorded and coded by theme. Eight interviews
involved members of the community-interest cooperative society, LODP, and four interviews
were held with members of FBB (see Table 3 in the Appendix). The secondary data comprise
the platforms’ internal documentation (activity reports, reports and strategy notes), their
communication tools (websites and social networks), press articles and radio interviews, and
platform members’ public interventions.

The observation work was facilitated by close ties between one of the researchers and some of
the Venice-based FBB team. This enabled us to follow the inception of the project and be
invited to attend the design workshops to set up the FBB platform. We were in contact with

4
Air mattress and breakfast.
5
https://blog.elloha.com/2019/08/24/nuitees-booking-en-tete-et-airbnb-passe-devant-expedia/
6 https://directory.platform.coop/search/?s=tourism
7 https://lagrandederoute.com/fusion-trocmaison-et-guesttoguest/

6
around ten members of the cooperative outside Venice during the setting-up of the first FBB
pilot in France. This experiment was carried out under a cooperation agreement between the
LODP and FBB cooperatives signed in September 2020.

A Cifre8 contract operationalised within LODP for action-research purposes enabled us to

collect a large amount of data on this cooperative. While the empirical study draws on two cases
of platforms that illustrate the countermovement in the field of solidarity tourism, the relevance
of this research is primarily to qualify LODP. As will be seen later, the positioning of FBB is
representative of platform cooperativism. On the other hand, it seems that LODP exemplifies a
model that has not been addressed by the academic literature.

22 - Fairbnb (FBB): A recognised player in platform cooperativism

The history of FBB

The first initiative came from Reset Venezia,9 a “laboratory of ideas innovation and
transparency” comprising activists and whose FaceBook page gathers over 11,000 members.
In 2014, an Australian data analyst published an online measure of Airbnb’s impact on
residential communities. Venice was the first Italian city to receive this extraction of Airbnb
platform data. The result showed that one-third of the offers were unknown to the authorities.
Out of the 3,000 offers analysed in 2014, only 2,000 had been declared. This finding was well
in excess of what Reset Venezia had assumed based on the visible effects such as the increase
in check-ins and trolleys in the Venice streets. The media published this information
highlighting the illegality of many of these offers and the city’s shortfall in earnings from the
tourist tax.

The publication of this survey did not trigger any significant reactions from the Venetians,
although there is still intense debate in the city on the pressures of tourism. According to
Emanuel Dal Carlo from Reset Venezia, this inaction is due to the fact that many residents
participate in this so-called sharing economy, ranging from property owners to many service
providers: renovation, cleaning, check-in, subletting, communication. This means that they
probably show little or no support for regulation or controls. The survey – and the low number
of reactions to its publication – revealed that Airbnb meets a very real demand from travellers
hoping to find accommodation that is cheaper than hotels and provides significant additional
income for many residents.

Reset Venezia launched Faibnb Venezia in order to continue monitoring the ever-increasing
growth of offers at quarterly intervals, forcing the local authorities to develop its own
monitoring systems. To go a step further than simple denunciation, Fairbnb Venezia then
worked to help change regulations at the local and national levels so that short-term tourist
rentals would be better regulated. Fairbnb Venezia thus contacted other FBB collectives at
international level to propose that they create a common, ethical and transparent platform to be
managed as a cooperative. To launch this project, FBB managed to mobilise €600,000, one-
third of which corresponds to share capital and two-thirds to loans, and provided job for some
twenty people. FBB’s strategy involves capturing some of Airbnb’s market share. In 2024, FBB

8
The Cifre contract allows enterprises to hire a post-graduate student for three years.
9
https://www.facebook.com/resetvenezia

7
aims to be present in 500 destinations worldwide with 30,000 hosts. This represents less than
0.5% of the offers posted on the Airbnb platform in 2019.

Fighting abuses of power

The Italian cooperative FBB is governed in accordance with the law (payment of local taxes,
transparency, collaboration with the local authorities and declared hosts) and by rules defined
by the cooperative, such as the “one host, one house” rule. The FBB manifesto states:
“Fairbnb.coop is first and foremost a community of activists, coders, researchers and designers
that aims to address this challenge by putting the ‘share’ back into the sharing economy. We
want to offer a community-centred alternative that prioritizes people over profit and facilitates
authentic, sustainable and intimate travel experiences ».10 The FBB cooperative thus claims to
be first and foremost a community of inhabitants confronted with the rise of the tourism sharing
economy. It proposes an alternative that does not reject this model but corrects some of its
slippages. This is due to the fact the FBB grew out of the encounter between several groups of
militants across the world, reacting to the impact of the sharing economy on their quality of
life, particularly the development of the Airbnb short-term rental platform in large cities. It is
in this setting that FBB Group proposed the creation of a platform as an alternative to Airbnb
so as to compete against Airbnb on its own market.

Shared profits

FBB adapts its social and economic model to promote cooperation between guests, hosts and
local communities. The platform allows for contacts between individuals and inhabitants. Half
of the platform’s fees are ploughed back into the hosts’ local area in the form of grants to
community projects. The model it advocates responds to principles such as collective property,
democratic governance, data protection and social sustainability. Part of the profits are
reinvested in community projects designed to prevent the negative effects of tourism. Based in
Bologna, the FBB cooperative has shareholders in Italy, Spain, Argentina, France and the
Netherlands. The operational team comprises three employees. FBB has received most of its
financial support from its founding members and two partner companies. The influence of the
companies’ collegial body is limited as it cannot hold more than 30% of the voting rights.

The FBB project aims to develop a more ethical platform than Airbnb with respect to the
following: transparent collaboration with the local authorities, value-sharing (earmarking half
of the fees for community projects chosen by the inhabitants), a cooperative form, and the rule
of “one host, one house”. In Genoa, FBB lists 27 rentals and four local projects, including one
cultural laboratory, two social inclusion projects and an aid to support the fight against the
Corona virus pandemic. The name Fairbnb in itself clearly indicates what the platform
proposes.

A openly intended copy-paste

The FBB cooperative developed out of the concerns of the travel sector and citizens of large
cities faced with platform capitalism and its impact on real estate and the quality of life. Its
innovative aspect rests on two proposals: limit predatory behaviours in the travel sector and
promote the crowdfunding of local projects. Its name immediately identifies it as an alternative
to Airbnb. The “fair” prompts a reflection on the ethics of the Airbnb platform and particularly

10
https://social.fairbnb.coop/posts/fairbnbcoop-manifesto

8
on its predatory dimension. For FBB’s founders, the brand name is the cooperative’s key
advantage. FBB is in itself a key concept that has attracted considerable media attention and
the cooperative has enjoyed broad press coverage internationally. Nearly 18,000 people have
shown interest in the formula as either guests or hosts.

The brand is also FBB’s main Achilles heel. The cooperative has requested European-level
protection for the FBB brand, which sparked protests from Airbnb. Ultimately, FBB may have
to change its name given the costs of taking legal action against Airbnb. Its communication
strategy is strongly based on the creation of an FBB community able to promote the platform
and act as local relays. In terms of a brand strategy, their main challenge is to acquire enough
notoriety to reach a broad-based public that is sensitive to ethical issues.

In parallel, Airbnb encourages its members to act in solidarity. The company positions itself on
hosting refugees and asylum seekers (via “Openhome”), or on hosting healthcare workers,
social workers and volunteers (via “Frontline Stays”). In Italy, Airbnb has partnered with the
City of Palermo to finance projects chosen by the inhabitants. Brian Chesky11 sees the pandemic
crisis as an opportunity to return to Airbnb’s original roots in a sharing economy: "When this
crisis is over, people will long for human connection, and that’s what Airbnb has always done
best. Our mission to create belonging and connection would not be possible without the
everyday people who host in their homes and offer experiences—hosts like you” (comments
quoted by Héraud, 2020).

The question is whether FBB can have enough influence on Airbnb to make it more ethical, or
whether FBB will find itself trapped in a logic of institutional isomorphism (Di Maggio, Powell,
1983). A comparable pattern emerged several years ago between commercial tourism and social
tourism (Caire, 2007). Regulatory pressure aside, mimetic isomorphism can also set in due to
the power of attraction of supposedly winning formulas. This can lead to choices that are
economic (fees), ergonomic (interface) and technological (booking schedules management,
payment systems), similar to those used by the dominant operator. As a result, the skill sets
required are akin to those in competing organisations and imply mobilising significant financial
resources. Likewise, a high growth rate of necessary. As the use of the FBB brand is contested
by Airbnb, the margin of manoeuvre is narrow.

To conclude, the history of FBB’s growth seems to indicate that it falls into the category of
platform cooperativism. As we have seen, FBB shares the three main ambitions defined by
Scholz for this field. FBB intends to be a copy-paste approach of the Airbnb model, it aims to
fight abuses of power by the dominant operator, and seeks to defend an alternative that proposes
sharing profits within the local areas involved. In 2016, FBB was one of the projects
foregrounded at the first conference on platform cooperatives organised in New York by
Scholz.

23 - Les Oiseaux de Passage (LODP): the prefiguration of platform associationism?

The history of LODP

LDOP is a community-interest cooperative society (SCIC) that groups together local

communities of actors in the tourist sector, the social and solidarity economy, culture, and
continuing adult education. “We started from a shared observation: digital technology has

11
Cofounder of Airbnb.

9
become essential in our activities, but the existing tools do not allow us to present ourselves as
a collective, and give visibility to the interactions that can exist between the members of the
same community” (quoted by Penverne, 2014). Since then, things have become organised.
“Each journey is a story that is written depending on encounters made and places visited. Bases
on this idea, LDOP proposes story-writing to discover a destination recounted by those who
live there. Those who transmit the journeys compose and advise travellers’ itineraries with
several hosting offers or activities by theme or locality” (France Active, 2018, p.25). In the
travel sector, LODP sets the fundamental objectives of defending cultural rights, human
interactions and the promotion of local heritage. LODP refuses the idea of rating the hosts in
the cooperative as this risks distorting the guest-host relationship. A member of the SCIC
commented: “During the preparatory workshops, many of our actors felt that they were
misrepresented by the rating system, because they became their clients’ servants, because they
had to constantly pay attention to their behaviour, but that they no longer had any real exchanges
with the clients.” As a result, LDOP prioritised comments in the guestbook, where the feedback
is positive.

“LDOP is a platform that proposes another way of travelling. It prioritises exchange and
encounters between professionals and travellers” (LODP’s presentation flyer). The platform
presents itself as “a shared online toolbox aiming to promote and sell hospitality offers that
make it easier to meet people, network, exchange, transmit, discover other people and places”
(Wanner, 2014, p.67). After one year of online presence, in 2020, the LODP platform launched
a research and development programme supported by the Nouvelle Aquitaine Region, in
cooperation with Poitiers and Paris universities, to de-digitalise its platform and the travel
sector. This involves moving the platform towards more frugal data management given its
impact on the environment, individual freedoms and the standardisation of the guest-host
relationship. The cooperative’s autonomy is also at stake: developing a data-intensive platform
is time-consuming and requires ongoing investment. Currently, to record a host on LODP, some
hundred items have to be filled in to calculate the pricing, availability, classification and
hierarchisation of the offers.

Sidestepping

The story-based method developed gives depth and uniqueness to the initiatives presented on
the LODP platform. Yet, despite all these advantages, the project remains complicated as,
contrary to a mimetic approach, everything has to be invented in order to transpose social
innovations into the digital world. “It was not easy to move from what we called stories, as a
heritage community, that is to say, the way in which a walk became narrative writing … to what
this means on a digital platform” (Interview 6). All of this implies a different design and
different ergonomics for the Web. To make a success of such a project, you need to bring
together and coordinate “developers, digital providers able to understand the subtleties,
understand the platform’s political project … and to propose technical solutions in line with
that, all this within a very tight budget” (Interview 7). The cooperative is pursuing the
development of its Web platform, while at the same time conducting research and development
(R&D) activities recognised by the Agence nationale de la recherche technologie (National
Agency for Technology Research – ANRT) in collaboration with several European universities.
It is participating in research programmes, hosts post-graduate students and carries out its own
activities.

LODP’s economic model is based on financial contributions through subscriptions, contrary to

existing platforms which mostly opt for transaction fees. This choice reflects their wish to allow

10
professionals to market their offers directly. As the platform is managed by its users, it was
collectively decided that the costs of managing the platform are shared by all the members via
a flat rate subscription with three options: sharing, which involves having free use of the LODP
brand, good ideas and itineraries; hospitality covering individual accommodation: groups,
which includes group accommodation, stays and flat rates. The subscription depends on a
voluntary contribution and the prices are indicative. The question of pricing is important for the
structures or actors who have scant resources. “We have associations that programme music
shows, theatre, and so on, and they have very meagre resources …. In fact, it’s useful to have
them on board and we need to have something adapted to their reality. It’s important” (Interview
3).

The subscription formula was chosen to mark a difference from the merchant platforms and
their flow-based logic. “We were operating, at least back then, as the anti-model to the Airbnbs,
which means we want to make information accessible (so the contacts are public), and we don’t
want to be very expensive (so the flat rate allows us to fix a cap)” (Interview 1). Some members
were unable to charge fees for regulatory reasons. “The director of tourism and agricultural
services for Greater Poitiers said that they could not charge fees. It’s impossible both legally
and administratively” (Interview 2). Economically, stable and predictable inflows of financial
resources have been prioritised. “The fixed amount means that we can rely on what is a priori
a secure resource” (Interview 1). This also means that there is no paywall for visitors to the site.
“As we’re using flat rates, it means that we don’t depend on visitor flows … Here, hospitality
producers are the ones who pay, whereas traditionally (in the tourist trade) the consumers pay”
(Interview 1).

The shift to a subscription logic aims to take the diversity of its members’ economic situations
into account, and this has been accentuated by the health crisis. “The idea was to use a
subscription logic so we could be present. This subscription logic … isn’t necessarily always
very fair. This is why we’ve created several profiles so that people pay more or less according
to their means” (Interview 3). Subscriptions also constitute a weak point as they can be
terminated. Ultimately, the whole challenge comes down to keeping the actors on board with
their choices and continuing to act collectively. The challenge for the platform is to make their
offer visible and build an identity. “I don’t expect it to bring me clients, as such, but I expect it
to identify me as belonging to a very specific tourist category” (Interview 4). The actors are
aware of the need to make headway with their economic model. “For one and a half years, we
ran workshops to at least try and invent what type of uses we wanted to make of digital
technologies, over and above the ownership of the platform” (Interview 5). Here, the proposal
relates less to technological innovation and more to usage innovation. “It’s really a disruption
of usage, it’s exactly that … it all revolves around the paradigm of hospitality …. It’s this
economic model that we’re putting in place” (Interview 3).

De-digitalising

LODP has no inhouse digital skills and this is a weakness. “One concern is that having a
community rather than digital background (internally we didn’t have people with digital skills),
this cost us a lot. There was a one-year delay in development” (Interview 5). Without internal
skills, the choice and management of a service provider create problems. This is evidenced by
overrun deadlines and a certain underestimation of the difficulties. “What proved complicated
was telling ourselves that we first think the tools are simple and, in the end, it’s complicated
[laughter], that we thought we weren’t going to internalise the skills and preferred to outsource,
use a service provider, but this meant we didn’t necessarily control the provider, for production

11
time, for the technical side” (Interview 1). The issue of insufficient inhouse skills comes up
against the project’s ambitions. “When you choose not to have filters, not to have ratings, not
to have comments, you’re forced to invent something different …. You take what exists and
you explore it again” (Interview 5). LODP’s core invention on the platform is not technological.
It is centred on a different usage of the Web space. “This blog editor where you can co-create
stories, the others don’t have it. The fact that we can … have an activity where several people
are story administrators, all this co-creation part, we are the only ones to propose it” (Interview
3).

The LODP team is mindful of all the platform’s different dimensions such as the choice of
economic model, the choices of governance, of ergonomics, of terminology, etc. These are not
without consequences on how the project is perceived and on the resulting human relationship.
“It’s not a question of website …. It involves creating a healthy relationship between those who
propose and those who choose, without anyone having to rate the other. “Les Oiseaux de
Passage must ensure the quality of the proposals based on the local cooperation arrangements
set up by the hospitality communities” (Wanner quoted by Guérard, 2019). From the outset, the
technical production of the LODP platform has stood out in the digital world. Platforms are
generally designed by technicians and web specialists to aggregate communities around online
applications, “Here it is the opposite, as we start with a community to set up a platform ….
Digital technology has made the journey very stressful. You give a rating, you look at the
comments... The idea is to restore the pleasure of travelling, and also to be disseminated as
much as possible. The contents of LODP are not exclusive, and the user doesn’t have to pay to
get in touch with an address hosted by the platform” (quoted by Penverne, 2014). The aim is
that the guest-host exchange not depend on a payment.

Broadening the collegial body of stakeholders

In addition to its local communities of service providers, LODP integrates its employees and
researchers working on the platform’s development as shareholders, as well as various referrers
(travel agencies, company works councils) who give the platform greater visibility.

The governance of LODP is based on several collegial bodies or boards: 1- the board of
producers/local communities (50% of voting rights) with one representative per community. 2-
the R&D board (30%) mainly comprising employees and researchers, 3- the board of
diffusers/referrers (20%) which include travel agencies, works councils, local authorities acting
as relays. To become an LODP shareholder, a person or entity must have been a user or
contributor for more than one year. Local communities are not necessarily shareholders. They
can be users without having to become involved in development. LODP has wagered on
actively involving stakeholders in developing their network and governance. LODP thus opens
up a space for action outside the scope of the dominant intermediaries such as Booking and
Airbnb. It refuses to introduce a rating system and has chosen to place its trust in the charters,
labels and brands of partner networks. The community-interest cooperative society (SCIC)
structure provides for multiple shareholdings organised around different boards that support the
challenges of the cooperative.

3- Discussion on the two types of platform observed

31 - Re-embeddedness and decommodification

12
The two platforms studied are making similar efforts to protect society from the threats posed
by platform companies driven by profit alone. FBB does so through cooperative governance,
which confers a dual status on its members – that of user and shareholder. This helps to re-
embed the platform by sharing decision-making powers with the user community. This is also
the case for LODP which, like FBB, has a cooperative status. However, LODP brings together
communities of actors, thus making it a community of communities. As a result, it has an
significant capacity to re-embed tourist activity in society, as it can rely on the local
embeddedness of each community.

LODP and FBB also share the same ambition to fight against the commodification of the world.
For FBB, this appears in the close attention paid to the quality of its work and the ethics of its
activities on the different territories. The social activities led by the cooperative are not
designed to compensate for negative externalities, but rather to proactively guide their actions
towards to producing positive externalities. In its processes, FBB complies with the principles
of platform cooperativism. For LODP, decommodification entails a broader attention paid to
the political, cultural and poetic dimensions.

This is visible in proposals that discredit the technical and organisational choices of Airbnb.
Examples of this include the refusal to operate through reputation, the choice of subscription-
based pricing, the idea of story-writing, and the freedom of guests to interact freely with their
hosts (even off the platform). A further difference emerges in the management of groups. For
LODP, local communities develop around a local contact person who co-opts other members
around a shared identity often linked to environmental, cultural or social concerns. Instead of
focusing solely on the commodification of labour and personal data, a local community can
address the commodification of money and nature. LODP shows an interest in non-monetary
payment systems and social currencies, and is able to hybridise different resources, be they
market, non-market and/or non-monetary. Advancing with this line of thought, LODP members
also challenge the contradictions inherent to digital activity.

32 - Pronounced differences

Field observations reveal pronounced differences between the two platforms. The first is found
in the respective histories of these initiatives. FBB was created and developed following a
reflection on the harmful effects caused by Airbnb’s extension and growth. The founders of
FBB hypothesise that these effects can be avoided by imagining another form of platform
governance. Airbnb was thus the starting point and motivating factor for the project’s
stakeholders. The main innovation is the adoption of a cooperative model for the platform. FBB
came into being in places where gentrification and the pressures of tourism are urgent issues,
such as in Venice, Amsterdam or Barcelona. A mimetic solution is thus relevant, as it allows
many families to take it up on the basis of their experiences with Airbnb. The challenge for
FBB is to enable hosting families to continue to earn a substantial additional income, while also
protecting themselves against property speculators. FBB members all have a common
denominator: sharing a platform whose rules are applicable to all users and centrally managed.

The history of LODP is in no way comparable. The project was developed around an initial
reflection on cultural rights, human rights and the promotion of heritage. The LODP
cooperative was founded by actors from the social and solidarity economy who had long been
engaged in ecotourism and hospitality for all. When they decided to heighten their visibility,
this raised the idea of a platform. As sharing platforms like Airbnb were seen as unable to
defend the LODP model, another type of platform was envisaged. From the outset, LODP

13
stakeholders had greater freedom. While LODP complies with applicable tax and legislative
frameworks, its project aims for a paradigm shift in tourism. Whereas FBB requires strict
compliance with existing rules, LODP is trying to drive a change in the technico-economic
system specific to the travel sector by developing a critical discourse on the sector’s standards,
pricing logic, tax environment and its intermediaries. LODP’s strategy is underpinned by the
search for new forms of intermediation in the tourist sector in view of changing consumption
patterns and legal frameworks. For LODP, it is a matter of denouncing abusive practices
involving personal data collection, formatted relationships, ratings and pricing. According to
LODP, cooperative-style management and governance cannot offset the biases induced by the
technico-economic system of Airbnb in particular and of tourism in general.

Table 4: Characterisation of countermovement platforms

Platform cooperativism Platform associationism

Field of Social economy Solidarity economy
reference

Strategy “Hack” the GAFA by Sidestep by inventing another type of

implementing an anti-model:
- Race to digitalise
- Centralise, and network between
individuals
- Win market share based on the
ethical issue
- De-commodify labour and data
platform:
- De-digitalise
- Decentralise management. Network
between locally rooted communities
- Change the economic and digital
paradigm
De-commodify labour, data, money and
nature

Governance Democratic and targeting a board Democratic and built around boards of
of homogeneous actors heterogeneous actors

33 - Non-exclusive strategies

Although the two platforms have pronounced differences, these are not easy to separate out in
the analysis. The experiences of the two platforms are in fact very close. This is what led the
founders of both platforms to develop a logic of cooperation. They analysed what had motivated
their different strategic choices and sought to identify their complementarities the expected
synergies. Each of the two cooperatives is well-aware of its own limitations. FBB embarked on
a strategy to combat gentrification which makes use of institutional isomorphism. On the
contrary, LODP has engaged on a path for societal change over the long term, with the risk that
it could ultimately find itself marginalised. The cooperation thus plays out in a tension between
platform cooperativism and associationism, and in a strategic complementarity.

The two cooperatives have harmonised their strategies in order to find a space for cooperation
acceptable to the users of both platforms. FBB’s strategy can be described as pragmatic in the
face of the pressures of tourism in major cities. LODP’s strategy is idealistic in its ambition to
achieve a paradigm shift. The interest of this LODP-FBB partnership lies in having a
relationship of cooperation and not competition. FBB is expanding in cities experiencing
gentrification, whereas LODP is growing in places where local member communities are

14
present. LODP agrees to promote FBB at local level and its members can register as hosts on
FBB. The stakes thus lie in the mutual strengthening of the two structures in the face of Airbnb.

Table 5: Conditions for the growth and sustainability of countermovement platforms

Platform cooperativism Platform associationism

Emergence Copy-paste of capitalist platforms;
(strengths) Benefit from a well-known name by
playing on an opposite stance;
Potentially wide support.
Emergence Substantial technology investment to
(weaknesses) be on a par with capitalist platforms.
Sustainability Ethical advantage acquired due to its
(strengths) democratic governance structure.
Sustainability Risk of isomorphism with capitalist
(weaknesses) platforms; High technology
maintenance costs to stay on par with
the competition.
High expectations from
marginalised communities wanting
to exit their isolation; Strong intra-
and inter-community relationships.
.
Lack of time and finance to create an
inter-community structure; Difficult
to find a common agenda between
very different collectives.
Openness to action-research and
experiments; Shift of economic
paradigm that invalidates
competition; Response aligned with
the challenges of the ecological and
social transition.
Complexity of steering the multi-
stakeholder platform; Economic
model not self-sufficient.

Conclusion

While the two digital platforms observed have intersecting strategies, our research findings
show that they have very different characteristics. The first platform (FBB) aims to “hack” the
model of capitalist platform-companies while endeavouring to empower its users through
democratic governance practices. The operating modes, the processes and algorithms are
relatively similar to those of merchant platforms, but the cooperative logic empowers its users,
who can self-organise collectively around the platform. This strategy is well documented by
the literature on platform cooperativism. The second platform (LODP) aims to take a sidestep
by prioritising the interpersonal relationship and bringing together communities rooted in their
territories. This digital platform is not seeking a scale effect but has the role of coordinating
local actors. To differentiate it from platform cooperativism, we propose calling this second
possible type of platform, “platform associationism”. In this second case, the cooperative
organisation is built on multi-stakeholder democratic governance. It promotes extensive
cooperation with all the actors in the territories concerned. The main challenge raised by
platform associationism is the commitment to the prospect of social and environmental
transition. For LODP, this can be seen in the decision to de-digitalise the platform, and develop
unique relationships between guests and the hosting communities. In this approach, digital tools
themselves are not refused, but rather their possible manipulation. LODP is thus proposing to
use another form of intermediation that makes sparing use of infrastructure, data management,
programmes and algorithms. It requires exiting “economic sophism” (Polanyi, 2011) and
creating another digital economy (Aufrère et al., 2021).

15
Under our research programme, this observation of platforms enabled us to see how two
recognised forms critical of capitalism – the social economy and the solidarity economy – were
able to be translated in the alternative digital world. It is worth remembering that the ambition
of LODP is emancipation. This takes concrete form in the expression of a twofold critique: the
first (which brings it close to FBB) is the opposition to a relationship of domination stemming
from the instrumentation of a market logic; the second, in the current context of acceleration
and reification, rests on a renewed attention to the world (Tronto, 2009), challenges the place
and role of digital technologies, promotes a relation of resonance (Rosa, 2018), and works to
give a central place on the platform to residents, citizen movements, local production and
currencies, cultural rights and the non-human.

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Appendix

Table 1: Overview of the two platforms

Fairbnb Les Oiseaux de Passage

Positioning
Cooperative platform Associative platform
Pragmatic Idealistic
PMV: Venice PMV : Northern district of Marseille
Faced with gentrification and pressures of Faced with low visibility and marginalisation
tourism
Fight against real-estate speculation Fight against tourist speculation
Digital technology is neutral Digital biases taken into account
Meet a short-term emergency Change society over the medium-term
Objective
Become owner of tourist sharing platforms Change the tourist hospitality paradigm
Change the rules Change imaginaries
Regulate existing models Change existing models
Fight illegality, tax optimisation and real-estate Fight for the right to holidays, the right to
heritage and human rights
Strategy
Competitive strategy Cultural strategy
Win market share in the tourism sector Re-embed the tourist market
Copy high-performance model that already exist Try out new models
Economic model
Common brand Each platform keeps its own brand
Communication is fundamental Action-research is crucial
Fees on sales Subscription for services
Participatory funding for local projects Stories based on local projects
Centralised communication based on the brand Decentralised communication through local
stories
Importance of checking compliance with the Importance of pooling and local story-writing /
brand rules / central local
Use existing digital solutions Develop new digital solutions
Social business (market-based approach): Associationism (relationship-based approach):
Solidarity and labelling logic logic of pooling and sharing
Centralised approach: standard rules Integrated approach: local rules
Property right (brand) Open source
Impact of context
Impact through market regulation: legislation on Impact through market deregulation: revenue
platforms management,
Risk of institutional isomorphism Risk of marginalisation
Rule-based promise: one host, one house Relational promise: from human to human
Name widely known Poetic name
Communicate a concept = an ethical Airbnb Communicate an ambition = the right to travel

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Table 2 : Platform structure et activities

2020 FAIRBNB Les OISEAUX

STRUCTURE
Legal status Italian cooperative Community-interest
cooperative society (SCIC)
Creation October 2018 January 2016
Share capital €200 000 €60 000
Loan €400 000 €200 000
Team 6 permanent contracts: 6 4 employees : 2 men, 2 women
men
Shareholders 19 shareholders: 17 shareholders:
3 organisations, 10 organisations,
5 permanent employees, 2 employees,
11 natural persons 5 natural persons
Voting rights 33% employees 50% producers’ board
33% investors 30% research board
33% stakeholders 20% diffusers’ board
Ethics Advisory council Human rights
ACTIVITY
Went online August 2020 June 2019
Economic model Guest fees Professional subscription
Cost to guest 15% Free of charge
Professional cost Free of charge Free of charge up to €50 HT
monthly
Destinations October 9 57
2020
Hosts October 2020 100 234
Countries October 2020 5 5
% hosts/country Italie 68% France 93%
2024 objective 500 destinations 450 destinations
30 000 hosts 2 000 members

Tableau 3 : List of interviews

Interviewees Identification Platform

Co-manager 1 Interview 1 LODP
Ekitour director Interview 2 LODP
Co-manager 2 Interview 3 LODP
Manager, Zazie Hôtel Interview 4 LODP
Co-founder Interview 5 LODP
Founding member, Guides Office Interview 6 LODP
Employee, Coop des communs Interview 7 LODP
Director, Terre de l’Est Interview 8 LODP
Founding member, Paris Interview 9 Fairbnb
Founding member, Buenos Aires Interview 10 Fairbnb
Employee in charge of spin-outs Interview 11 Fairbnb
President Interview 12 Fairbnb

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