DC Download
April 12, 2025
Last week’s DC trip was awesome.
Project Liberty Institute (“PLI”) and the Decentralized Research Center (“DRC”) convened a three-hour workshop on April 1 at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. The school is named after PLI’s founder, Frank McCourt.
The purpose of the workshop was to provide input for a report that PLI and DRC are going to publish soon about how data cooperatives can be used to foster “user-centric digital economies.”
I participated alongside 34 of the most advanced thinkers on data cooperatives. They included academics, cooperative managers, lawyers, technologists, and other experts. It was a remarkable group of professionals, and the workshop was deftly moderated by none other than a User Co-op member.
As I wrote before, a “data cooperative” is a data-driven business that’s owned and governed by the producers of the data that the business relies on, not traditional shareholders, and the producers of that data can range from individuals to large collectives.
User Co-op can be considered a type of data cooperative because people wholly own and govern us on the basis of their “clicks” on our services, and we opted for “clicks” because they’re data-capital transactions from which a tech company derives its value.
If I counted right, I was one of five cooperative managers in the room. The other four managed cooperatives owned by artists, researchers, workers, and other cooperatives.
And, given that User Co-op is “user-centric” and a type of data cooperative, I believe that we're quite close to what PLI and DRC have in mind when they think of an exemplary data cooperative.
The guiding questions for the workshop were:
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How to democratize online spaces?
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How to build a fair data economy?
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How to create better business models with data?
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How to bring forth more equity in the tech space?
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How to make data cooperatives mainstream to accomplish these things?
(My cheeky answer to these questions is “join User Co-op,” but I didn’t have the nerve to say that at the workshop.)
The workshop was a fantastic experience. Each participant shared their perspectives. I learned a ton, and I hope our discussion provided some solid input for PLI and DRC’s upcoming report.
The key themes and takeaways of the workshop can be found in PLI’s article on the event. Suffice it to say, almost everyone in the room seemed to agree that (1) a “tool” that enables data providers to both capitalize on and protect their data is needed and (2) a data cooperative is an effective tool for that job.
I believe it’s the best tool for that job.
However, views on how to launch and scale a data cooperative were mixed. That’s totally understandable because no data cooperative has ever operated at a large scale.
Our views on launching and scaling, which I communicated for the most part at the workshop, are incorporated into everything we do. For example:
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How we justify our existence with a simple belief that people aren’t getting a fair deal for the data they transmit to the tech companies they use, and it’s time for a tech company to step up and give back all its wealth to the people who use it
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How we build our community first through free and open membership and by leading with “tech power and profits to the people,” not a web browser, which is merely our first app
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How we build our company with money our members voluntarily chip in for startup costs and, later, with profits from proven business models
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How we communicate, right down to the font we use (Host Grotesk Light, baby)
After the meeting, I networked for about an hour and a half, and I was blown away with how much fun and easy it was to connect.
Because of this workshop, we've connected to a whole new community of like minds, and it has a global footprint. We've started several conversations, and there are many more to be had. My hope is that they lead to partnerships, collaborations, and network connectivity that can help us build our membership at a larger scale.
I’ll update you as we go along. In the meantime, join us and chip in, if you haven’t already!
Matt
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April 12, 2025
Matt Martensen
Founder/organizer