#TIL: What are platform infrastructures?
by Sreelakshmi R.
Infrastructure was the buzzword surrounding the recently announced Union Budget 2021–22. While we may immediately think of highways, bridges and electric grids at the very mention of it, infrastructure can mean far more than physical, brick and mortar structures for public use. As with pretty much everything in the 21st century, infrastructure is also digital.
This fascinating essay explains what platforms are, going above and beyond the meaning that they are marketplaces where service providers meet consumers. It explores the nature of a platform, and how it enables these interactions and exchanges. A key aspect, as it were, are the infrastructures atop these platforms. So in reality, besides aggregating services, platforms also spur the development and aggregation of infrastructures. Platform infrastructures, therefore, comprise the layer of developments that allow the marketplace to come together, and should not be confused with its function, aggregation.
What do platform infrastructures look like? Consider the open APIs and mobile app interfaces that get built around the launch and entrenchment of a platform service: it is possible to see how the plug-in and plug-out model used by an Ola driver is mainly facilitated by the front-end of the platform, the mobile app, and its integrations with others like online maps for navigation and e-wallets for payment.
These infrastructures can also take the shape of the physical assets that are needed to deliver these services; a car or a house on Uber or AirBnB are physical infrastructures aggregated for the marketplace platform to function, and for self-employed drivers and hosts to offer their services. On the other hand, a home-grown brand on a digital retailing platform may be an example of a new infrastructure created in the digital, with an entrepreneurial mind in action. In all these cases, the platform’s ability to unlock market access at unprecedented scales and enable the profitability of smaller or individual enterprises plays the most important role in drawing out these infrastructures.
Evidently, platforms emerged in light of the need for aggregation of many such physical assets in the interest of better service quality; all platforms we see today are necessarily built on digital infrastructures. The proliferation of platforms leads to the expansion of these infrastructures as well. A variety of industries- mobility, logistics, home improvement, at-home salon services, online microwork, and even content creation/ curation, use this very same strategy and further the creation of infrastructures.
These infrastructures too, are important, and deserving of our attention and nurture, as they too create livelihoods in their wake — much like laying telecom lines or municipal roads do. Except, in the case of platform infrastructures, the jobs generated simply do not end with the creation of infrastructures, rather more value is created on top of these infrastructures by end service providers as well. The result is that double the livelihoods are created through the introduction of a platform infrastructure as opposed to physical infrastructure, and the time is ripe to cash in on the advantages provided by digital platforms to develop both infrastructures.
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