Platform capitalism and cloud infrastructure: Theorizing a hyper-scalable computing regime

Abstract

There has been an explosion of scholarship on platform capitalism, with scholars identifying emergent labor practices, organizational forms, and business models. There is broad agreement that successful platform companies quickly dominate their markets, and winner-takes-all scenarios are common. However, market domination should not only be viewed as a condition but also as a process that is defined by specific drivers and practices. With regard to rapid expansion, much is said about network effects and data-intensive business models that are fueled by speculative logics as well as weak regulatory mechanisms. I advance the discussion on expansion and hyper-scalability by focusing on the transformation in underlying computing arrangements that shape the growth of platform-based companies. This article establishes cloud computing arrangements as setting the foundational sociotechnical infrastructure that drives rapid expansion.