Introduction to Digital Commons
What is a (digital) common ?
A common is…
Always 3 things:
- People that share the common (community / society)
- A resource that is being produced (shared / consumed / maintained)
- A framework to establish how the common is produced (governance)
Example: Nature (
, 
, 
), Infrastructure (city), Knowledge (
)
Digital Commons
Digital Commons recap
- creation / distribution / governance / ownership of knowledge and technology
- for the public interest
- Efficient model of production (crowdsourcing)
- Highly democratic
Examples !
Examples deep-dive
Knowledge
Wikipedia, Wikidata
Encyclopedia, Search engines, Metadata, NLP, Education, …
Cartography
OpenStreetMap
Maps.Me, Mapillary, Mapbox, OpenVegeMap, Pokémon GO, Humanitarian OSM Team, …
Travel
Food
OpenFoodFacts
Yuka, HalalOrNot, Nutri-score, …
Evolution of the commons
Long ago 
A few centuries ago 
Today 
Today
- liberalism: private slowly replaces public sector
- capitalism adoption of the commons: sharing economy (Airbnb, Uber), but without the governance
Social / Political aspects
Goals & issues
Commons vs Private
- Counterbalance the privatization of knowledge & resources
- Hard to fight big digital monopolies (more regulations needed)
- Not enough support from the public sector
Internally
- Lack of diversity (male dominated space, usually tech / educated profiles)
- Requires collaborative skills
Future prospects
Closer ties with the public sector 
- Reduce dependency of public with private sector
- Develop local economy and communities, political/governance skills
- Co-creation of public policies (increase democracy participation)
Don't forget that technology is a tool and not a solution
What about the private sector ?
Balancing 'for the customer' and 'for good'
- current framing: “customer is king” and the government (often an industry regulator) is what stands in the way of a corporation’s ability to serve her
- dedicate some time or the product/service for public interest
- find bigger problem to solve, rather than protect the business model that has delivered in the past
- innovation vs human progress
Takeaway
If there is no commons, there is no market
Change of mindset: consume less, share more 
Thank you 
Additional links
Follow
- Mayo Fuster Morell: Spanish social researcher focused on the sharing economy and digital commons (twitter)
- Matti Schneider (twitter)
Read
- Creative Commons free book 'Made with Creative Commons' (link)
- Shareable.com '15 books to check out this summer' (link)
Listen
- 99% Invisible Podcast Episode: Palaces for the people (link)
Sources
- Wikipedia: 'Commons' & 'Digital commons'
- Slideshare: 'Made With Creative Commons' by Paul Stacey
- Medium: 'Unsquandering Of The Digital Commons', 'Dessine-moi un commun numérique'
Introduction to Digital Commons slides: https://hackmd.io/@raphodn/BkyI9MDXS
{"metaMigratedAt":"2023-06-14T23:16:29.663Z","metaMigratedFrom":"YAML","title":"Introduction to Digital Commons","breaks":true,"description":"Passion Share at Refinitiv Labs Singapore","contributors":"[{\"id\":\"8b475f19-d0fd-4b07-bf02-f785c1cef2e2\",\"add\":7984,\"del\":5355}]"}