Peer Production,
Connected Communities:
Towards Cooperative Human Systems Design
Yochai Benkler

Industrial Information Economy
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
2005 dollars
2,500,000
2,000,000
1,500,000
Newspaper
Startup Cost
1,000,000
500,000
0
Bennett founds 1835 1840 1850
The Herald, first
mass circulation paper, NYC = $500=~$10,400 2005 dollars

Stark bifurcation between producers and consumers
Passive large audiences
Professional, commercial producers
•Market based or government owned
•Characterizes the basic industrial structure of
information industries for 150 years
• => radio; television; satellite; mainframe

Radical decentralization of inputs and processes
Material
Processing, storage, communication
Sensing, capture
Human
Creativity, wisdom; intuition, experience
Sociability
• The most important inputs, into the core economic
activities, of the most advanced economies, are widely
distributed in the population
• => Networked Information Economy

• Social action shifts from the periphery of
the economy to a stable element at its core,
because newly effective.

from discrete stories to a solution space

2007 San Diego Fires => Human Sensor Networks

Consumer reviews

Four transactional frameworks
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
Market-based Non-market
decentralized Price-system
centralized Firms Government;
Non-profits

Four transactional frameworks
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
Market-based Non-market
decentralized Price-system Social sharing
centralized Firms
Government
Traditional Non-Profits
with increased
capacities

Integrating payments
with sociality
<= Metacafe
Integrating
commercial firms
into social systems
Kaltura =>

But can this work in poorer countries?
Mobile platforms, rather than personal computers

Making Mosoko Free
1. User calls Mosoko number
1. Ring ring Mosoko
2. User hangs up after a ring
or two (no charge) 3.
2. Click
721802061
3. We observe number 4. Call-back
4. We call him back (again,
no charge)
Same approach used in popular weather service
Keeping it free: Insert ads or charge for some types of postings
Provides degree of authentication
Intra-provider calls are cheap
© 2008 Nokia 2008-06-02 / JTL

Keyword Tagging
•Posts are “tagged” with keywords.
•User picks topic with key-pad “Honda”
•Then, narrows results with speech tags.
Contact Phone Post Timestamp Recording of posting Tags
072 456342 Mon 10:05am “My car is a ...” Toyota
071 873901 Mon 8:22am “This van is great ...” Honda
072 213241 Mon 6:50am “Blue toyota ...” Toyota
074 988023 Sun 11:05pm “Great mileage ...” Fiat
(Sort on Timestamp)
© 2008 Nokia 2008-06-02 / JTL

How M-Pesa Works
2. Transfer 3. Withdrawal
1. Deposit at
Kiosk
072 989200
Recipient’s phone
100
Amount
1234
(900 Kiosks in Kenya) Sender’s PIN
“Pesa”=”money” in Swahili
Generates SMS message
© 2008 Nokia 2008-06-02 / JTL

Faster learning and innovation
distributed sensing of opportunities for action,
solutions, experimentation, adaptation

Agents and resources separated into firms
A1 R1
A2 R2
A3 R3
A4 Company A R4
A5 R5
A6 R6
A7 R7
Company B
A8 R8
A9 R9

Agents and resources in common enterprise space:
decentralized authority and capacity to act central to the
feasibility Peer production
of this solution community R1
A1 R2
A2 R3
A3 R4
A4 R5
A5
A6
R6
A7
R7
A8
R8
A9
R9

Decentralization of capacity and authority
to act is critical
Commons-based strategies move
to the core
Peer production / large scale
cooperation
Permeable boundaries
organizational, institutional

massive untapped capacity

Massive untapped capacity
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
12000000
10000000
8000000
6000000
4000000
2000000
0
t elecom ms ISPs, w ebhost - newspapers sof t war e pubs br oadcast ers movies
ing et c
2002 Economic Census; Paid employees per industry times 8 hours

Massive untapped capacity
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
90000000
80000000
70000000
60000000
Compared to 5 minutes per day
x number of Internet users
50000000
40000000
30000000
20000000
10000000
0
peer t elecom ISPs, n ew s- soft ware br oad- m ovies
produ c- ms webhost - papers pu bs caster s
in g et c

Massive untapped capacity
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
2 50 0 00 00 0
2 00 0 00 00 0
Compared to 1 hour per day of North American Internet
users time (=~¼ of average time spent watching TV)
1 50 0 00 00 0
1 00 0 00 00 0
50 0 00 00 0
0
peer t elecom ISPs, new s- soft w are broad - m ovies
produ c- ms w ebh ost - papers p u bs cast ers
ing et c

Massive untapped capacity
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
1 20 0 00 00
1 00 0 00 00
80 0 00 00 Compared to 2.5 minutes of North American
Internet users alone (assuming each spends
100th of average TV time on productive uses)
60 0 00 00
40 0 00 00
20 0 00 00
0
p eer t elecom m ISPs, new s- softw are broad - m ovies
p rodu c- s w eb host - pap ers pu bs casters
ing et c

Faster learning and innovation
a more participatory culture
Not utopia, but a more democratic public sphere

Human creativity in loosely
coupled systems moves to the core
Requires
human systems design for
cooperation

Social software/platform design at the
forefront of research and innovation
Multidisciplinary efforts: experimental
economics and psychology, sociology
and anthropology; evolutionary biology;
organization science

How do we get beyond designing for
self-interested individuals, and
incorporating the diverse reality of how
people actually are?

=> Communication
=>Sensing others: empathy and
solidarity
=>Doing what's right, fair, and normal
=>Social dynamics: trust, reputation,
identity; leadership; network dynamics
=> all interact with what's expedient

Universal translator
Rich identity management
and reputation system
Unspoofable social
attestation device

Social network mapping
and awareness?

Ubiquitous Net
social capabilities baked into
devices
everywhere; all the time:
mobility and global access

The rise of the social is the critical
long term shift
New models of market-culture-
state-society relations
Built into systems that will
increasingly focus on design for
cooperation
Beyond the Net to the physical
social world