Digital Platforms and (Im)Perfect Market Futures

The purpose of this chapter is to speculatively explore the future of digital platforms and how they transform the nature of many conventional markets. Digital platforms create novel connections between actors in multi-sided markets, whilst generating and capitalizing on vast amounts of data. Platforms are thus not just match but market-makers, exercising asymmetric power over their multi-sided users whilst framing the institutional and regulatory environment in which they operate. However, platforms are also the outcome of the market shaping activities enrolling a variety of actors, and may involve multiple economization modes (e.g., market, gift giving). The chapter draws upon examples of retail digital platforms to develop a conceptual discussion of the role of platforms in the contemporary economy and considers their implications for the future of markets and market-making. The dual purpose of this chapter is to examine what the rise of digital platforms means for Market Studies and what a Market Studies perspective brings to the study of platforms. We propose and discuss three specific themes at the intersection of Market Studies and digital platforms.