Confronting the Paradoxes of Digital Platforms

In this essay, I argue that scholars has developed a rich theoretical toolkit to uncover and analyze digital platforms through a paradox lens. This lens is crucial because digital platforms permeate nearly every aspect of modern life—from commerce and social interactions to education and healthcare—yet the burgeoning literature has not sufficiently contended with how their rapid rise poses a series of paradoxes that challenge researchers and practitioners alike. The paradox lens highlights how conflicting interests between platform owners, users, and regulators are the central cause for these paradoxes. For example, platforms may introduce more opacity into their governance to prevent gaming behavior, and this in turn constricts providers’ autonomy and their ability to improve their standing on the platform. In this paper, I discuss four paradoxes frequently encountered by each platform actor. To more holistically grapple with the benefits and challenges platforms present, I argue that it is essential for researchers to more explicitly acknowledge and contend with these paradoxes. Addressing these paradoxes requires platform owners, consumers, producers, and regulators to fundamentally change the assumptions and characteristics that undergird current approaches to platform governance, operations, and evaluation.