Digital platforms have expanded their scope from venture capital supported projects, towards global operations and multi-billion dollar oligopolies. However, the platform model is not entirely new. It was a common business model for newspapers, radio, and television. Before increasing commercialization through cable and satellite television, broadcasting was, for the most part, a state-supported monopoly only partially commercialized and privatized in many European countries. Production either relied on state subsidies through mandatory subscription payments in the public service model, or on advertising in the market oriented model. For example, audiences could freely listen to radio stations, while the state or the advertising industry provided funding for content production. Similarly, some digital corporations derive profits by providing advertising space for boosting sales and creating demand through the increase of consumption of products produced in other parts of the economy, obtaining their revenue from the circulation of commodities and capital in the economy as a whole. Additionally, they also produce their own means of production, such as software systems, algorithms, and AI, whose sales serve as an additional source of income and profits.

What is new about the digital platform model, compared to traditional media, is the scope and scale of gathered data, along with automated and improved analysis. Analysing big data requires technical assistance because manual analysis is not possible, or even conceivable, in any reasonable or economically viable amount of time. While the traditional media model required separate firms and an entire industry for audience and market analysis (for example, Nielsen, PwC), platforms developed entirely new markets on their own, along with the tools for analysing those same markets. The scale of their operations and the accumulated background data on consumer preferences provide them with a comparative advantage that is difficult to match in the data-driven business. In this chapter, we focus on platforms, advertising, and users as elements of the specific business model within the capitalist mode of production. These elements occupy the centre of many mainstream and critical analyses. Focusing on platforms, advertising, and users allows us to connect the theoretical approach outlined in the discussion about social forms in Chapter 2 with the more empirically oriented Chapters 5, and 6.