Session: Responsible Business Models: Placing public values center stage

https://conference.publicspaces.net/en/session/verantwoordelijke-businessmodellen

Naam/name Notulist: Teije Terhorst
Datum/date: 27-06-2023 15:00

Sprekersnamen/speaker names:

• Marco Ferri - https://conference.publicspaces.net/en/people/marco-ferri
• Mathilde Sanders - https://conference.publicspaces.net/en/people/mathilde-sanders
• Host: Simone van der Burg - https://conference.publicspaces.net/en/people/simone-van-der-burg

Shownotes 

(mentioned links, books, podcasts, literature, etc.)

• PubHubs
• -
• -

Live notes (500-750 words)

Please use full sentences and write in the spoken language of the session / Graag volledige zinnen gebruiken en de taal aanhouden van de sessie
Start: keynote by Mathilde Sanders
Former PhD business models and platforms and currently postdoctoral researcher on PubHubs (new public network in the Netherlands) at Universiteit Utrecht.
Public vs. Private business models
Business model is a set of activities that lead to a specific outcome (traditional: solution to a problem of a constumer). That changed online: subscribers and advertisers are two markets with conflicting value propositions.
For costumers: good content. For advertisers: network effects, the network of a platform is sold as a product.
Value creation is no longer on supply side, but on the demand (advertisers) side that's currently being exploited. Tech focusses solely on one side of the market, the golden egg (instead of the chicken). 
The public business model can solve this problem, because here you can take away the advertising market. You take away the golden egg, but keep the chicken. In the public model, you have to invest in the chicken (the supply side). 
Focus public values in PubHubs are privacy, security, user friendliness and inclusion. How do you solve problems with these values? What problems occur for individual users and how could you solve those?
Ideal future model: membership fees are paid by public organizations (community ownership), no commercial data exploitation, e-wallet identification, human moderator, interoperable public ecosystem.
Data commons could be solution against data exploitation. Not impossible to use the data, f.i. for education and research.
E-wallet could play an important role in combating fake news, against fake identities.
Against fake news human moderator is important, as news is currently partly computer generated (role of journalist partly taken over by tech).

Panel
Paul Francissen, founder of PublicRoam, public secure wifi service that solves the problem of insecure free networks, data is not being exploited. Only data collected is mobile number, which can be used to track users who use wifi for illegal activities. 
Marco Ferri, The Syllabus a knowledge creation institute that track societal debate (academic articles, media, etc., not restricted to specific type). Developed systems to analyse what constitutes 'knowledge'. 
Team of 'human creators' work to select what's worth reading on a given week. Created a platform with subscription model. Goal: making good content available for users. Concept behind it is that we live in a world where information is delivered to us by algorithms that support profit. Focus on clicks and revenues, Syllabus wants to move away from that and focus on quality.
Publicroam is privately owned, a BV. Before, Paul set up GovRoam, which was public foundation, but in the governance they found that there was no need for foundation. They make a contract with each organisation they work for (municipalities, libraries, etc.). Data proposition is in the contract, which is very simple, so there's no need to have any other guarantees about public values. As private organisation, they strive to innovation and they could (if needed) have investers step in. 
What if a venture capitalist comes along and wants to buy the business? They wouldn't be interested as they can't deal with data provisions in currently signed contracts. 
Syllabus is non-profit for two reasons: (1) pragmatically, to get funding that's strictly driven by a mission instead of being forced to make profit. Funders are in line with values (2) want to have a public stance on the matter, to run counter to the dominant Sillicon Valley-way of doing business. Want to be perceived as public.
What type of institutions are customers? Started with subscription model, individuals signing up. Academia, journalists, public sector mainly. Also work for institutions, either some that want to access a particular part of the product (f.e. NGOs that want to get information flows that are interested in a specific topic). They sign service grants. Syllabus also receives grants from public and private institutions. These kind of activities result in public good. 
Crypto-Syllabus: putting together a narrative that was a bit more critical on use of crypto that traditional media coverage. 
Work with curators (12) who work with curatorial guidelines. Human sides of things are regulated. Putting extra effort in underrepresented voices and issues. Algorithms are not yet open-source, but is intention. Given their bootstrap nature, they haven't done it yet. 
Not a lot of physical assets, how do they get the means to invest in expending the user base? Use of social media? For Paul (PublicRoam), support by KB and SIDN was important to get the message to libraries. Currently PublicRoam has account managers that call people and sell the product. Also LinkedIn is being used.
Government regulation needed? Paul: in NL we have Forum Standardisatie, with a complyer explain list for governments. PublicRoam-standards are on that list. This helps PublicRoam in convincing governmental organisations. It would help if government would promote access to free and secure wifi networks.
Marco: don't really have competitors in their field. Organisations that do the things that they do (content harvesting), but mainly fully automated and no emphasis on their topical focus. Overlaps in institutional partners and clients.
Greater selection of academic articles, such as Google which has its own problems. If you use Syllabus to get in touch with specific academic debate, the alternative is watching your Twitter feed which has its own problems and biases. 

Questions
Syllabus: how is access to academic articles arranged? Do their best to highlight open access articles. Multi layered structure, with level to highligh articles that they recommend. Syllabus has relevant subscriptions
Can Syllabus give a breakdown of revenue model? Almost perfect: 33% grants, 33% subscriptions and 33% service agreements. But not commited to keeping payed access, would be ideal if service agreements would rise 
Syllbus ever tried to make academic articles accessible? Marco: would be extremely expensive to do so. 
PublicRoam: who pays? The institution that wants to make wifi accessible, such as libraries. 
Could Dutch railway service become a customer? Yes! 
PublicRoam: how is their service different from just someone putting up a router and share the password? If you share your password, anyone who knows it could copy the network and set up their own network to do harm. PublicRoam advises all organisations to set up networks in which user information is isolated. 
Transparency and guarantees: how secured? What guarantees do we have that you'll stick to the same values in the long run? For PublicRoam: guarantees are not given, but would be happy to do so, not commited to uising phone numbers instead of IRMA for instance.
Why in't PublicRoam service in library apps? Is an option and would increase service. But lots of work, because all libraries use their own apps.