Del consumidor al peer production cooperativo

by Julen


En P2P Foundation hace ya un cierto tiempo que están dándole vueltas al modelo que ha planteado Yochai Benkler en su libro The Wealth of Networks. Hay una serie de 5 posts en los que están analizando modelos de «economía ética» a partir de ideas que surgieron en la reciente conferencia Wizard of OS 4 en Berlín. Los cinco posts están agrupados en un proyecto: The Ethical Economy Book y hay una recapitulación de la serie en esta entrada (por cierto, en el momento en que escribo este post no funcionan unos cuantos enlaces).

El debate abierto incorpora ideas de gente como Lawrence Lessig, el mismo Yochai Benkler, Kevin Carson o William Brandon Shanley. Incorporan también referencias de Tom Peters. En definitiva un interesante debate donde surgen alternativas en torno a lo que podemos considerar como open business (aunque no sólo).

Como muestra de las ideas que están surgiendo, incluyo aquí un análisis de Michel Bauwens entorno a las diferentes posibilidades de estos modelos económicos «open». Observa las posibilidades (los subrayados son del que suscribe):

  1. Consumers: you make, they consume. The classic model.
  2. Self-service: you make, they go get it themselves. This is where consumers start becoming prosumers, but the parameters of the cooperation are totally set by the producing corporation. It’s really not much more than a strategy of externalization of costs. Think of ATM’s and gas stations. We could call it simple externalization.
  3. Do-it-yourself: you design, they make it themselves. One step further, pioneered by the likes of Ikea, where the consumers, re-assembles the product himself. Complex externalization of business processes.
  4. Co-design: you set the parameters, but you design it together. It is important to see the distinction between phase 4 and 5. In stage 4, the corporation sets the parameters, but allows input in the design phase. I can’t come up with an example right now.
  5. Co-creativity: you both create cooperatively. In this stage, the corporation does not even set the parameters, the prosumer is an equal partner in the development of new products. Perhaps the industrial model of the adventure sports material makers would fit here.
  6. Peer production: they create, you assist and enable. This is the current open source model with Linux; whereby the peer producing community essentially produces the product, but with assistance from corporations; and with some corporations creating derivative streams. The Web 2.0 makers of participatory platforms, which enable but attempt to monetize participation, also fit in this category.
  7. Peer production with cooperative production: peer producers create their own vehicles for monetization. I don’t know many examples of this, but here the peer producers not only create the commons, but also create separate vehicles for this; and these vehicles are cooperative themselves, i..e. they are geared to equity amongst the participants. Here we could probably make a difference between vehicles that are a priori controlled by those taking the initiative, (would that be the case with the the Mozilla Foundation?), and others were the nonprofit and/or cooperative venture is explicitely democratic and aims to include the whole community of peer producers.

¿Conoces ejemplos de tu entorno? Otros modelos son posibles. Alegría… porque, entre otros, Juan Freire también está en ello.

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