What are platforms? Definition, examples, and why they are so powerful

Platforms are everywhere. From Instagram, Spotify and Netflix to Google, Deliveroo and ChatGPT. Many of us use them every single day. Platform researcher Anne Helmond (Utrecht University) explains how they work and why they influence your life more than you might think. How did platforms become so powerful? What does that mean for us? And what can we do to become less dependent on them?

What is a platform? 

When people hear ‘platforms’, most think of social media or apps. But platforms are far broader than that.

In short: a platform is a digital system that connects different groups – users, businesses, developers, advertisers – organises their interactions, and sets the conditions under which those interactions take place.

Platforms determine who or what becomes visible, who gets access, what happens to your data, and which rules apply. They also create dependency on their services, infrastructure, and ecosystems. More on that below.

Search engines (Google Search), app stores (Apple App Store), cloud providers (Amazon Web Services), artificial intelligence (ChatGPT), advertising platforms (Google Ads), meal delivery (Deliveroo), and online shops (Amazon). They’re all platforms.

A platform is a digital system that connects different groups, organises their interactions, and sets the conditions under which these take place.

Even less visible digital systems can be platforms, when they bring together different data sources, users, and organisations, and organise the conditions under which they interact. Think of software that assesses risk, detects fraud, or is used within defence. A well-known example is the data and analytics platform Palantir, which frequently makes headlines. Palantir combines data from various sources into a single analytics platform used by governments and businesses for decision-making.

How do platforms influence our daily lives?

How we find news, how we communicate with one another, how we navigate, how we work, how we buy and sell things, and increasingly, how organisations make decisions. We rarely stop to think about it, but platforms shape huge parts of our lives.

We often don’t notice how we’re being steered. We simply see that an app is convenient, that a search engine gives a quick answer, or that an AI tool makes our work easier. But behind these user-friendly services sit systems that collect data, steer behaviour, and create dependency.

Why are platform corporations like Google, Meta, and Amazon so powerful?

Platforms are powerful because we depend on them for so many things. That’s no accident. The companies behind them design their services so that they become ever more central to everyday life and to organisations. This dependency arises largely through two mechanisms: gatekeeping and lock-in.

Gatekeeping on platforms

As gatekeepers, platforms decide who gets to participate, and under what rules. A small business needs Google Search, Instagram, or Amazon to be found. An app developer can’t avoid Apple’s App Store or Google Play, including the requirement to hand over 30 percent of all revenue. And an organisation that wants to use AI quickly ends up relying on Microsoft, Amazon, or Google.

Platforms are powerful because we depend on them for so many things. That’s no accident.

Platform lock-in

A platform is almost never a single, standalone service. It’s usually an ecosystem: a network of interlinked products and services. Microsoft, for example, has OneDrive for storage, Teams for communication, Outlook for email, and Office for documents. The more of these components come together, the harder it becomes to work around them.

Platforms fuel this dependency by creating various forms of lock-in: it becomes increasingly difficult to leave, even when better alternatives exist.

Sometimes that’s because all your contacts, photos, messages, files, or workflows sit within a single system. Sometimes it’s because your organisation is technically tied to a particular cloud environment. And sometimes it’s simply because everyone around you uses the same platform.

Are platforms good or bad for society?

Behind platforms are companies whose first priority is profit, and which aren’t always transparent about how they actually work. Their commercial decisions affect millions of people. Consider organisations that suddenly become less visible in search results after an algorithm change, creators who depend on TikTok or YouTube and their shifting terms, and organisations locked into a single cloud provider that have to accept whatever pricing that provider sets.

At the same time, platforms aren’t purely negative. They also offer convenience, entertainment, reach, and new ways to communicate, work and collaborate. We don’t need to avoid platforms altogether. The real question is: how can we better understand their power, limit it, and organise it more democratically?

How can we limit platform power?

Users can try to use platforms more consciously. By thinking about privacy settings, for example, exploring alternatives, or asking whether certain services are really necessary. But individual awareness alone isn’t enough.

We don’t need to avoid platforms. The real question is: how can we better understand their power and organise it more democratically?

Platform power calls for collective responses. Governments can require platforms to be more transparent or can limit their power directly. The EU has already taken steps in this direction with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA). Alternatives to large commercial platforms can also help, such as open-source software. These free you from dependency on a single company. Dutch universities, for instance, are exploring the use of Nextcloud as an alternative to Microsoft 365.

It’s also important that systems can work together, so that users and organisations aren’t locked into a single platform, and that you can take your own data with you when you switch. Much like taking your phone number to a new provider.

Finally, independent oversight is essential. Researchers, journalists, and civil society organisations need to keep critically monitoring platforms and making visible how they actually operate.

The first step is simple: understanding better what platforms are, and just how much of our daily lives already runs through their terms and conditions. Instagram, ChatGPT, TikTok, and eBay are not neutral tools. They are systems with their own interests and rules. That realisation is the foundation for the societal debate we need to have, about what kind of digital infrastructure we want as a society and under what conditions.

What are the different types of platforms?

Examples of platforms by category: