CCG Chronicles #10 - Issues with the Sharing Economy and Platform Cooperativism
This episode is a continuation of the CCG Chronicles series which is a collection of interviews conducted during the Crypto Commons Gathering (CCG) in Austria back in August 2021. The interviews were also filmed to potentially be a part of a documentary I'm making with a few others. During the CCG I interviewed Blanka Vay and Andreas Arnold who are both members of the CirclesUBI (@CirclesUBI) Cooperative based in Berlin. We spoke about why they believe platform cooperatives to be ...
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Hi, everyone. What you're about to listen to is an interview that I took in person while attending the Crypto Commons Gathering Conference in Austria in August 2021. The conference itself was a wonderful experience where people of a lot of different backgrounds and political ideas were able to discuss openly and safely about how crypto can intersect with fostering the commons. What you'll notice from these interviews is that these differences in thought are sometimes apparent because we all come from different places, and what was honestly refreshing about the experience is is that we could do it in a supportive environment. This is probably one of the most receptive audiences in crypto to socialism, which was really great for me. Also, a heads up is that you may notice sometimes that the audio was clearly recorded in the house that we were all staying in, which wasn't the best place for recording, but we did the best that we could with what we had. A lot of the interviews will also likely feature in the documentary that I'm making about the world of crypto and its potential futures with a friend. A big reason I was able to make it to this conference was thanks to all the support I received from patrons. So if you find the work that I do important, I hope you'll consider helping out starting at $3 per month on patreon.com/theblockchainsocialist.
So we're here at the Kuta Commons gathering, and I'm with two very interesting people who are very involved in the cooperative space and involved with the server BBI projects in in, Berlin. So maybe just to get started, if each of you wanna give a introduction to yourselves and the projects you guys are involved in.
Mhmm. Ladies first. My name is Milank Kavai. I'm Hungarian, but I live seven years long in Berlin, and I'm working for the circus UBI almost three years long.
And my name is Andreas Arnold. I'm a community builder, connector, and a business developer from Berlin. And I, work for a platform corps Germany, a corp that we founded, in order to create a digital cooperative ecosystem in Germany. And, besides this, I'm also a member of the Circle Co op that I had founding, a member of the, Smart Freelancer, Co op, and, yeah, I do some other consultancy works in the Co op space.
Nice. So how, so to I I kinda like you guys are the most representative, I think, of maybe, like, the cooperative space in, in the crypto commons gathering, so far from what I've seen. So I'm wondering if you guys could maybe define what's cooperativism is.
Yeah. So, I think cooperativism refers to an economic idea also like business practice where companies and then all individuals who engage in the economy, don't do this primarily by competing against each other, but, more by cooperating and collaborating on on various levels. That does not only mean, that individuals are cooperating on on the value creation process because we are used to this already in the platform economy. Let's say at Uber or Airbnb, we all contribute with certain services. This is still part of the cooperativism world. But in addition to this, you get to participate in the decision making process, which is like the operative view of this, but also in the long time, benefits that are being created because you actually hold one part of the company. The the basic rule is one member, one vote. So you can then also, you know, vote on, like, where the profits are going, which is completely different to Uber and Airbnb.
Right. What's the difference between just, like, traditional corporations in general?
Well, besides this, well, let's say, like, the ownership structure, in a traditional company, is usually based on a few investors, a few very early founders, and and whoever joined on the way, but it's very limited to to a selected group. Whereas in the cooperative world, all the people who are participating in this value creation are also holding a share and can, really, participate. K.
Is there anything that you would like to add to that description? He's the best possible expert. So my friend is Does that fit your, like, experience in working in a cooperative so far?
I worked mostly in NGOs, and this is the first time when I'm working in a for profit entity. And I think, and this is what I enjoy pretty much here, that it's, I think this is the closest possible option to the Non profit area in the for profit world. I didn't really see, didn't really feel our Cooperative as a for profit entity. We have this option, so to say. But I enjoy very much that we can have the best of the two words Right. With this setup. Yeah. So then maybe
so, right, we have on one side, we have traditional corporations in which the ownership structure is based on a few investors and shareholders who make decisions for everybody else who works for it, therefore, exploiting their labor. And then on the other side, we have cooperatives in which the people who are actually doing the labor, get a cut in the share of the profits, and they get a say in the governance of the actual entity itself. So I think what's maybe on top of that, what is interesting to, to talk about is platform co ops and how those like, how how do you see those in this space?
Yeah. So you're right. I mean, the idea of cooperativism and COPES particularly is a few 100 years old. And since they, unfortunately, don't really live up to those values, what we just described, they they rather have hierarchical, you know, yeah, many hierarchies. So that's why, at one point, especially when also the sharing economy, bursted and and and, people who joined earlier coming with the idea of shaming is is caring figured out that eventually, again, like the big VC companies, they win, then the idea of co ops got elaborated to to another level. And and the term, platform co ops, just adds then in addition that, all those governance processes which used to, be hold in one room, like, for a general assembly, hundreds of people had to come together, which was okay when you talk about agricultural co ops or local banks and so on. But this is not really possible in the digital world. So that's why the platform comes in addition as you know, a digital infrastructure, which could be a blockchain, a DAO, any, types of communication protocols to, enable this global governance to happen. But it could also mean that the business model itself is not happening in a in a analog world, but but in the Internet. So, yeah, any any type of platforms like, again, Uber or Airbnb, that could become a, platform co op, as well.
So were you, like when you came across the crypto world, we was there, like, a clear connection, between platform co ops and blockchain in the beginning? How did you feel about that?
Well, I think I heard about, Blockchains and DLTs before, Platform Corps. Oh. Because, yeah, or maybe it happened at at the same time. And, and initially, yeah, I didn't see so much of a connection. And to be honest, I was also not really in into governance, because having started some some own startups before, I thought it's easier to to start without all the community building around because then you're more agile, you can move faster, and so on. But that perception changed when when you could really tell that, for example, in the Berlin ecosystem over the course of the years from 2012 to 2014, more than 200 social entrepreneurs, had to stop their activities because, yeah, they they just could not rival with with those big platforms. So that's why, community building and governance became a dimension of, I don't know, of competitive advantage even because you could, do things differently and and and reach out to the people in a way where you didn't need those billions of dollars, for marketing, but where you could, you know, rely on on direct connections because you you are from the network. You are the network, basically. That opened a different, range of of business, yeah, possibilities. Yeah.
And so one of these crypto projects that you are involved with is, of course, Circle's UBI. So I was wondering, if you could, Blanca, can you explain very quickly what Circle's UBI is and, how it's working in Berlin at the moment? Mhmm.
So Course UBI is is a project where we want to create a basic income system without the state, with the complement or currency, and where the value of this Basic Income comes from the people who accept it as a payment. So what we used to say is that it's a community based basic income that people give each other basic income. It's not just a marketing bullshit. It's it's a very, important fact in the system. And our cooperative Circoscope has two main goals. One is to build up this pilot in Bahrain, to be able to show that it works. And the other is to support with empowerment, skill share, knowledge, whatever, all the groups around the world who are interested in building up a similar system based on this concept.
And how does that system, like, as a as a user? Say, I come to Berlin and I want to take part in Circle's UBI ecosystem. What what would I have to do? Mhmm.
First, you need to sign up. It's pretty much recommended to go to to one of our events because, we have this solution to avoid fake accounts that circles works only through trust connections. Otherwise, the system would create a lot of basic income to a lot of fake tokens, and this is not what we need. And it's not just aesthetical issue, it's harming the system. And you can have a use of this basic income system if you're really part of a community, so to say. So if you're pretty much isolated, then you will be most likely able to join in the system because you will find three person who validate you with their trust that you are a living person. But since the payment going through the real trust collections, the usage of your tokens will be pretty much limited. And it's an obvious question, why do we have why do we have in the middle this very strong bottleneck? Because if you have a money, you want to spend it. And if you have the surplus money, you can spend it through this trust connection. The main reason for this is that if you want to have if you want to create value in a money which comes for free, it's a big witchcraft. And one of the tools to achieve is this bottleneck that if you can use it only through your cross connection, then it will have more likely a real value at the end of the day because it's validated, so to say, that it's not a fake thing. Okay. And now we are at the beginning of this work, which means that if you follow our social media and soon we will have hopefully a marketplace where these information are easily available, then you can see which businesses are accepting circles. Now we have some high quality good food, what you can buy services. You can pay for bookkeeping, accounting, which is very, very important because this kind of service is interesting for everybody. Even if you have a bookshop, even if you're an interpreter, whatever you are doing. If you can't pay with circles for bookkeeping and tax advising, then there is a value for basically now for every possible Circle business partner. And you need to follow it, and then you know that that I can pay for a launch with circles,
things like that. Yeah. And so you guys have a few, businesses already in Berlin that accept circles? Yes. Yeah. So if you come to Berlin, you're accepted into the circles network. You get a little bit of a circle as UBI. You can go get a, you know, coffee or, you know, I guess a lot. I I A big bowl. Some cafes. Yeah. At least.
Coffee is important, but it's not just about coffee. Yeah. Of course.
Well, since we're in Berlin, Germany, it actually started with beer.
Okay. So you can get a beer. Breweries are first. Nice. And how how has it, gone so far? Like, I know you guys do so, like, what's really interesting about Circles UBI, I think, is that I mean, when you think about UBI, a lot of people just think about, oh, the government will rain money on everyone and then, you know, they'll use it. But, you know, the sort of maybe potential issue of that is that, okay, well, alright, all of our landlords just increase our rents by the amount of, like, UBI everyone gets. It's like, there's a limit it, you know, with that type of system how it works. Then on the other side, it was like, okay. These all these crypto projects that want to do UBI, so, like, alright. We're making a new token, and we're just, like, giving it to everybody who signs up. And they're, like, yeah. That's UBI. You know, just take these tokens, and then you can spend it. But there isn't any, like it misses the point of, like, how you use money, which is, I mean, in the circles, UBI approaches, like, through these trust networks. Where you have to be trusted by three people who are also trusted, etcetera, in order to join. And then you sort of are creating value through your trust. You're recognizing the value through your trust.
That's a good question. I would say yes because to understand and to use circles takes a lot of effort now. Partly because people don't understand what's going on. And of course, people don't understand how Euro is functioning. They just don't ask the very same or similar questions. Where is the value behind euros? Why it has a value? Which functions does this money have? Where is how is produced? Euro people don't ask such questions, but if they confront the circles UBI, then they start to ask these questions. And it's very difficult to, answer them. And if people give this effort, that's I think this is where I see the trust behind this. And if later it will work better and it won't be so complicated to find, okay, that I can pay with circles, but does it functioning right now or not? And how can I pay taxes? And what is this? If in few years, it will be much easier, much smoother. People won't ask those questions because it's functioning and the functionality, the usage of the system. So there I see the trust. And the other is that I see and appreciate and I find very touching the trust of our business partners. And they are doing it because we share the values and not because they think that they will be pitch based on circles. Yeah. And it's a very touching thing.
Oh, Adam? Yeah. And might just add on this, like, one, important aspect of the value creation behind circles as we recognize that it's not an air drop from the government or just another shit coin as somebody phrased it today. It's really, besides the trust of the individual people and besides the trust of the business, it's also that we create new economic value by matching supply that did not find its way to the market yet. And, on the other hand, people who do not have the means of consumption, people with with no fiat currencies, basically. And by by, matching them, we create new opportunities for for for markets, and and this is in itself, economic value because otherwise those resources, they would have been wasted. Like a social beer brand in Germany, that we have as a business partner, which couldn't sell, 50 liter kegs in the last one half year due to the pandemic, They would have, just thrown it away. But now, we buy this for circles, which is still the worst less token to them. But we, can sell it to the UBI holders. And, by this we start a new economic, value chain or supply chain that eventually we loop into a network because, the beer brand, which is now holding that worthless token, figures out, oh, wait a minute. It's not that worthless when I can pay for marketing, for logistics, for, tax consultancy, and so on. So we really, stitch together a network where, businesses can also save fiat currencies, and that's then beneficial to them. So it's eventually also raising the value of the token. And once, there's a critical mass of people and businesses and a certain value of the token, then, of course, it will set more incentives for other people and other businesses to join.
Yeah. And I imagine that as well. I mean, with, circles, I mean, you guys are doing this pilot in Berlin, so there is, like, this focus on, like, the material economy, which I think sometimes some crypto UBI projects, maybe sometimes miss because that's it's, like, purely digital. But circles UBI is something that is, the digital part is easy, I think. It's easy to to send circles back and forth over the Internet because of natively it's platformed on a on a blockchain system, and over the Internet it's sort of where where it thrives. But you're making this conscious effort to make it into a, like a material currency or, like, you know, one that we would spend in the need space, so to say. But I imagine, like, for you, Andres, there's some implications for this for, like, the platform cooperative world as well.
Let me think about this one. I mean, yeah. As I said, the platform, cooperative world is still fairly new, So it's very exciting to have concrete examples, which are really, living that idea. Yeah. And it makes it tangible. So that you come to Berlin, you can experience what platform cooperativism is like. Yeah.
Nice. So you guys have been at the conference now for a while, and we're nearing the end. And, I asked everyone this. But, what do the crypto commons mean to you? Who wants to go first?
I enjoyed very much that, we didn't need to explain everything from scratch. People just understood, and they had very relevant questions. Yeah. That's a rare experience if you talk about circles. And I'm very happy that we we could have this session because that's for us probably one of the best possible group to spread and to get critical, valuable feedback.
Yeah. I think, crypto, similar to platform calls, are making, or paving the way towards a world of commons because it's not only educating people about all those possibilities, but it lets it experience how you could actually participate in governance, in, collective value creation, sharing, and and all all those things that we are not used because we are still coming from this old world, where companies utilize top down hierarchies, and, and people are I don't know. I mean, they they they they they seem to not be so active, at at their work. They're paid for something, and then they go home, and this is when their life starts. But I think in the common school, we all need to be, aware of, like, what's going on and and how we could, participate in this. So, along the way, I I really see that, crypto and and platform co ops, yeah, can can support people and experience this and then, later on, even enable different systems.
Nice. Yeah. That was a huge theme, throughout the conferences. How do we build a new system? Everything is spot. How do we do something different? And I think Circle's UBI is, one of those, like, little beacons of hope that maybe we can make a small a small system somewhere
to try and, give them a little bit. In Berlin, it's a small thing. In Berlin, it's a basic pocket money. Mhmm. But, we have, for example, a very promising pilot in Indonesia, in Bali. Uh-huh. And I have high hopes about their work, and then it won't be just a pocket money. If they succeed, then circles can create a very, very big change, in the life of money. And that's already something. Yeah.
Nice. I just wanna double check. Is there anything else that you guys want to mention? You got it all.
You wanna say the domain or register your wallet under circles.com, something like this?
No. We don't need more users. We need more business in the system. So register your business and accept circles as a payment. Yes. This is what I can say.
Cool. Maybe to just finish off, you guys can share where people can, follow you and keep up with your work.
Yes. Our main information channel is on Twitter. That's Circus UBI. And we have Instagram and Facebook, but they are less interesting. And the main website of this project is the joincircles.net. And there we try to explain how it's functioning, how you can, connect.
And, yeah, you can follow-up our work in Platform Corps Germany, via the domain platformcorps.de, and, get in contact with us to, engage in our community calls, get support if you wanna create a platform corp, or even join our, platform corps innovation network.
Cool. Thanks for coming on. And,
Thank you. Yeah.