In all cases, the partnerships rely on players from the traditional cultural and creative industries, on local and regional authorities, as well as on associations and charity groups, hence providing a reservoir of fresh creative labour and renewing the oligopoly/fringes model—while at the same time blurring the distinction between public and private players, which is treated as unimportant in the new ‘ecosystem’. In the digital era, the principal factor in an economic player’s expansion is supposedly no longer its ability to optimize transaction costs internally, but its propensity to conduct and organize transactions on an ‘open market’ (Tapscott and Williams 2006: 56).
Despite the ‘publicizing’ of these partnerships, which promotes an image of synergy and dynamism, platforms are more discreet about their ultimate goals. Referring to Gillespie (2010), Bullich (2015) says about YouTube that platforms have an interest in playing on semantic ambiguity, revealing only those aspects of their work that present them in the best light and leaving the strategic, operational and economic dimensions in the shadow. This is done to maintain an image that is neutral and sympathetic to Internet users, and which can win over investors and partners. These platforms create an ‘alternative’ image that promotes innovation and creativity, freed from the yoke of industrial logics and their implacable financial concerns, in favour of an elsewhere that is freely chosen and over which one has full control, and where financing is a matter of choice, of sharing ideas and of love at first sight. On KissKissBankBank, partnerships advertise themselves under the philosophy of ‘Do It Yourself’ and co-creation. The partners are instead called ‘mentors’, and only their logos are shown. Other platforms like Indiegogo promote the concept of ‘DIWO’ (Do It With Others)—a gesture at the ideology of collective intelligence mentioned earlier.
Finally, if platforms are considered to be, or even legitimated as, ‘alternatives to bank lending institutions that are reluctant to invest in innovative cultural projects, they nevertheless have close links with those very institutions. There has been some degree of overlap since their creation, because banking partners and online payment services like PayPal handle transactions, claiming a percentage on each one (which varies depending on platform and payment method). For instance, Ulule has a partnership with BNP Paribas: ‘Convinced that crowdfunding and bank financing complement each other, Ulule ofers to refer you to BNP Paribas for all complementary needs relating to your entrepreneurial project financed on Ulule.’5 KissKissBankBank initially had a partnership with La Banque Postale, which went on to acquire the platform in 2017. Far from being ‘alternatives’, these apparatuses now present themselves as tools which complement existing sources of credit. Indeed, banks may agree to finance projects once they have attained the required threshold. Success in crowdfunding, supported by a community of ‘backers’, becomes a means of preliminary screening that reduces the risk of lending.
46
Cultural Crowdfunding: Platform Capitalism, Labour and Globalization