RIA’s dynamic and evolving research agenda examines the uneven distribution of the benefits and harms of the intensifying global processes of digitalisation and datafication. [...] While holding the currently powerful to account is important the primary of these interventions is to re-set the dynamics that gave rise to platform decay. [...] The decade between 2007 and 2017 saw a high tide of policy consensus that a narrow interpretation of competition regulation was desirable.12 This consensus claimed the sole objective of competition regulation was to prevent a decrease in ‘consumer welfare’ and that consumer welfare is reducible to price. [...] However, this consensus did not account for the “Divergence between judicial opinions on the one hand, and the rigorous use of modern economics to advance consumer welfare on the other.”13 Following on from the empirical work by Tim Wu and others, competition regulation cannot rely only on merger approval and abuse of dominance if it is to address the winner-take-all tendency of networks.14 A Regu. [...] To reiterate an earlier point, it is crucial to implement a forward-looking, proactive regulatory stance that can match the pace of developments in the platform economy and counteract ‘innovative’ evasions of competition and accountability mechanisms.
Authors
- Pages
- 9
- Published in
- South Africa
Table of Contents
- About the Resisting Information Disorder in the Global South Project 2
- About Research ICT Africa 2
- Introduction 3
- The Process of Platform Decay 3
- Objective 4
- The Economic and Policy Problem 4
- A Regulatory Change of Direction and Pace 5
- Create exit rights with reduced switching costs through adversarial interoperability 6
- Mandated transparency to avoid exclusionary conduct 7
- Reverting to fundamental principles of contract 7
- Investor protection 8
- Conclusion 9
