Platforms

The Platform Problem

In 1922, I founded Rycerz Niepokalanej — Knight of the Immaculata. We started with one printing press. By 1938, we were publishing content for 750,000 subscribers.

We did this with technology that, by today’s standards, was primitive. Hand-set type. Manual presses. Physical distribution.

But we understood something that today’s platform builders have forgotten: infrastructure should serve the community, not extract from it.

Let me show you what that means.

The Extraction Model

Today’s major platforms — the social networks, the content aggregators, the app stores — operate on what I will call the extraction model.

The Case for Community-Owned Platforms

I built a media operation that was owned by its community. The community of friars at Niepokalanow owned the printing presses, the radio station, the distribution network. No external shareholder demanded returns. No investor pressured us to maximize engagement. The people who produced the media and the people it served were the same people, and this alignment of interest was the foundation of everything we built.

I am going to make the case that this model – community ownership of communication platforms – is not a historical curiosity but the most practical solution to the fundamental misalignment at the heart of corporate social media.