If digital services shape how people work (i.e. Zoom), get around (i.e. Uber), meet others (i.e. Tinder) and go on holiday (i.e. Airbnb), it also creates significant impacts:
- Financially: Several platforms can be cheaper than the previous incumbents, be it hotels or taxis, but they alsoreduce the housing supply and wages of people who work for them.
- Socially: Dating sites mean you’re more likely to meet someone with your interests, which can create homogeneity amongst couples. It’s essential to consider the social implications of these platforms, which are also undermining workers’ rights by creating new hybrid forms of workers.
How can we, as consumers and users, design behaviours in digital services that instead mean everyone benefits and shares the social growth they create? The future of digital services is in our hands, and we have the power to shape it for the better.
We can learn from how startups like Fairphone are creating ethical forms of mobile phone, or how platform coops-cooperative platforms owned and governed by the people who use them-are developing more cooperative models of sharing economy like Fairbnb or how social startups like Good Gym are combining the benefits of digital matchmaking with supporting people in need.
As we’re seeing with the pandemic, suppose consumer services could increasingly be provided “on-demand” either online, in public spaces or people’s homes. What happens if people don’t go to restaurants or pubs anymore because they can get better quality takeaways or gigs at home? Or if public spaces only become spaces to consume and be marketed to — like the Sidewalk Project was trying to do — so that people increasingly want to drink and dispose of more?
How do you create a better alternative if shopping online for the basics is easier? How about high streets that are less “clone town”-a term used to describe towns with a high number of chain stores, making them indistinguishable from one another-and have more of a unique character that attracts people — and even are turned into public spaces themselves?
I took part in a workshop organised by NESTA. The insights from that project were turned into an imaginary town. This digital simulation shows how different people interacted with these new models, which took the best from the digital and local communities. Take a look!
