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It may come as a surprise that #Wikimedia communities have an opinion on #competition rules. We do! Our contribution focuses on structural issues on the digital market that make it hard to enter and even harder to stay afloat in 1/10
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FKAGEU_response_to_the_NCT_consultation.pdf
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FKAGEU_response_to_the_NCT_consultation.pdf
Why is it important for us? In bringing more balance to the platform ecosystem, #DSA is an important but not the only one puzzle piece. It is crucial to make dominant platforms more accountable. But we also need to see how the market conditions enable them to grow stronger 2/10
We care for #freeknowledge to be accessible, reusable & reused. We need an ecosystem where it is economically viable not only for "walled gardens". Example: did you know that voice assistants make use of #Wikidata to provide accurate information? 3/10
https://www.wikidata.org
https://www.wikidata.org
This growing pool of magnificently useful, freely accessible data can be used by anyone to develop solutions that not only help us shop but also assist people with disabilities, etc. Yet none of the really popular voice assistants is #free/ #opensource! Why? 4/10
Market concentration, tacit collusion by oligopolies (alignment of market practices without a formal agreement), gatekeeping, single-homing, etc. create a market where winner takes all. These are all structural competition issues that need attention 5/10 https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/28/us-tech-stocks-are-now-worth-more-than-the-entire-european-stock-market.html
Not only do we need a good framework that the existing actors can adjust to, but also we need to redefine competitive advantage. "Moving fast and breaking things" is a game for the rich that makes everyone else miserable in the long run. 6/10 https://www.france.tv/slash/invisibles/saison-1/1274809-roulez-jeunesse.html
We see how vertical integration of services, of supply chains, extending to other markets reinforces the power of the biggest and locks in users and their identity. This + the rule that there is no harm when the service is free should be addressed 7/10 https://twitter.com/a2na/status/1145319168218189824
When users don't pay a subscription fee they pay with their #data. Speaking of, the enormous heaps of data that platforms collect on us should not be shared further to help competitors even if anonymised. It shouldn't be collected in the first place. 8/10
So in #EU we need new competition instruments to address these structural problems, whether we want to compete with the giants or - like our community - to make sure that #freeknowledge is a source of great new things that exist to help us live better 9/10
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_Policy/New_Competition_Tool
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_Policy/New_Competition_Tool
Live better without monetising our lives, attention, interactions, and experiences for the sole purpose of making rich people richer. As Buzz Aldrin once said "you promised me Mars Colonies, instead I got Facebook". Hopefully in the #EU we can start the discussion now. 10/10
