Crowd-Based Geodata Production and Platform Capitalism: The Case of OpenStreetMap

Platform-produced data play an important role in techno-capitalist platforms. Especially important in this context are open and free geospatial data, as geospatial data are becoming increasingly relevant in all aspects of daily life as well as for Web businesses. This chapter focuses on the example of the OpenStreetMap project and contrasts it with two techno-capitalist platforms: Meta/Facebook and Grab. OpenStreetMap is often considered the most successful crowdsourced geodatabase, which derives its prosperity from communities of map contributors. Conversely, companies such as Meta/Facebook and Grab are seen as part of platform capitalism, and for them to succeed, they need geospatial data. To satisfy this craving for geospatial data, these companies have chosen not to develop complete solutions or use other commercial data sources. Instead, they tap into data that OpenStreetMap provides and have started to contribute both data and software to OpenStreetMap. This chapter theoretically contextualizes the growing relevance of techno-capitalist platforms for OpenStreetMap: on the one hand, actors of platform capitalism may dominate epistemologies or exploit volunteers by using their “mapping labor” for their commercial purposes; on the other hand, techno-capitalist platforms may also provide incentives for empowering marginalized groups who can now literally put themselves on the map.