Digital platforms have long understood themselves as ecosystems and adopted an ecosystem mindset toward growth, competition, and governance. The ecosystem approach has helped the digital platform business model become one of the most successful in the last three decades and proliferate beyond the bounds of regulatory jurisdictions. This bodes the question: is regulation still in a mechanistic trap?
From the 29th of June to the 1st of July, Athens welcomed competition policymakers, researchers, and industry leaders from all over the world to discuss the changing nexus of competition and consumer welfare in the era of digital platformization. As part of the ECOANTITRUST project Gergely Boza, Guest Research Scholar (CAT, ASA) and Alexey Ivanov, Director of the BRICS Competition Law and Policy Institute delivered a joint presentation on Ecological Thinking on Digital Ecosystems for Better Competition Policy: Gardeners vs Mechanics.
Ivanov introduced the key conducts of digital business leaders which demonstrate their ecosystem mindset thereafter highlighting the mechanistic approach which regulators still tend toward. Ivanov emphasized the need to address the fragmentation of regulatory jurisdictions since the absence of consensus has historically led to underenforcement and uncertainty in regulation.
In his presentation, Boza established connections between the processes of biological evolution with the processes of technological and economic evolution. In line with the aim of ECOANTITRUST, Boza highlighted that biological systems and digital economic systems are both types of complex adaptive systems (CAS). His presentation focused on their underlying CAS structures as a catalyst for deriving scientific analogies from the biological domain to the domain of the digital economy and introduced the Eco-Evolutionary 5M Framework designed jointly by ASA researchers and the BRICS Center which ascertains the ecosystem mindset for digital platforms from a perspective of competition policy. Not only would such an approach allow for a 'common regulatory language' around ecosystem governance which would clarify understanding between digital platforms and their regulators; it would also facilitate for a transfer of insights and models useful for designing regulatory tools adept in the nexus of digital platformization.
The conference also hosted presentations and discussions from Ioannis Lianos, President, Hellenic Competition Commission, Olivier Guersent, Director General Competition, EU Commission, and speakers across universities and institutions in the EU and BRICS countries.
