An introduction to online platforms and their role in the digital transformation
Online platforms support so many of our daily activities that we have become dependent on them in our personal and professional lives. We rely on them to buy and sell goods and services, to find information online and to keep in touch with each other. We use them for entertainment, news, transportation, accommodation, finding jobs and employees, finding apps and for many other purposes. Online platforms have also raised new and important policy questions, but the businesses themselves can be more complex than they appear, so they are not always well understood. This report contains detailed profiles of twelve of the world’s leading platform companies and derives insights from those profiles about what platforms actually do, how they do it, and why they succeed financially. For example, the report finds that although platforms tend to have a number of economic characteristics in common, they also vary so greatly that they cannot be compartmentalized into just a few categories, let alone a single sector. Moreover, they do not all succeed for the same reasons. In addition, although the major Chinese platforms still have a low profile within the OECD, they are in the process of expanding globally and deserve more attention
What is an “online platform”?
The term “online platform” has been used to describe a range of services available on the Internet including marketplaces, search engines, social media, creative content outlets, app stores, communications services, payment systems, services comprising the so-called “collaborative” or “gig” economy, and much more. In this report, an online platform is defined as a digital service that facilitates interactions between two or more distinct but interdependent sets of users (whether firms or individuals) who interact through the service via the Internet. This chapter explains that definition and presents some economic characteristics that are common among online platforms
Primary impacts of online platforms on economies and societies
Online platforms are a diverse group of entities that have had, and continue to have, a wide array of effects on economies and societies. This chapter identifies and describes the main impacts in that array. It presents most of them holistically, meaning that it discusses the benefits, risks and policy challenges brought by online platforms or in connection with them
Online platform typologies
The company profiles in Annex A facilitated the development of a number of typologies for online platforms. These typologies could eventually be used to match the impacts in Chapter 3 with the categories of platforms to which they are relevant, which would facilitate more focused discussions and policymaking concerning online platforms. Many typologies of online platform are possible, and several are presented here. Although they were developed primarily on the basis of the 12 company profiles, they can be used to categorize all online platforms
Insights from the profiles
This chapter presents a variety of insights drawn from the company profiles in Annex A. These insights range from basic points about how different the platforms are from each other in ways including functionality, size, profitability and labor intensity, to observations about the factors that drove their success, to perspectives on the scale, scope and future of the big Chinese platforms
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