Gov/en/Portal:Ecosystem/Coopetition: Difference between revisions

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{{KidsIntro|Co-opetition means working together AND competing at the same time. People compete to do their best work, but they share tools and rules that help everyone. Like a sports team where players push each other to improve but win together.}}

{{ExpertIntro|Co-opetition, the combination of cooperation and competition, is the social and economic philosophy WikiDeal intends to follow, inspired by wiki culture: providers would compete on quality while cooperating on shared infrastructure, legal frameworks and dispute resolution, with the Open Calls process as its main institutional expression. Two explored extensions are introduced: cooperative co-ownership of an ecosystem of agreements under free licences, from niches to global reach, and a merit model based on research contributions.}}

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== Co-opetitive Culture ==

'''Co-opetition''' — a portmanteau of cooperation and competition — describes WikiDeal's social and economic philosophy. The platform is not a commune where competition is suppressed, nor a traditional marketplace where competition is the only principle. It is a structure where competition between individual providers produces quality and innovation, while cooperation between those same providers produces shared Infrastructure, legal protection, and collective advocacy.

'''Co-opetition''', a portmanteau of cooperation and competition, describes WikiDeal's social and economic philosophy. The platform is not a commune where competition is suppressed, nor a traditional marketplace where competition is the only principle. It is a structure where competition between individual providers produces quality and innovation, while cooperation between those same providers produces shared Infrastructure, legal protection, and collective advocacy.

=== The Wiki Culture Foundation ===

WikiDeal takes its cultural inspiration from the wiki movement — specifically from the productive tension within Wikipedia between individual contributors who sometimes fiercely disagree about content and approach, and the shared commitment to an encyclopaedia that serves all of humanity. Wikipedia's quality is, paradoxically, partly a product of conflict: the vigorous debate between editors, governed by transparent rules and a shared mission, produces articles that are more accurate and nuanced than any single author could produce.

WikiDeal takes its cultural inspiration from the wiki movement, specifically from the productive tension within Wikipedia between individual contributors who sometimes fiercely disagree about content and approach, and the shared commitment to an encyclopaedia that serves all of humanity. Wikipedia's quality is, paradoxically, partly a product of conflict: the vigorous debate between editors, governed by transparent rules and a shared mission, produces articles that are more accurate and nuanced than any single author could produce.

WikiDeal applies this insight to commerce. A babysitting platform where all babysitters earn the same and face no competitive pressure to improve might produce mediocre service. A platform where babysitters compete purely on price might drive them to unsustainable rates. WikiDeal's model allows babysitters to compete on quality, specialisation, availability, and approach — while cooperating on the platform Infrastructure, the legal frameworks that protect them, the dispute resolution systems that keep trust high, and the collective advocacy that ensures their working conditions are fair.

WikiDeal applies this insight to commerce. A babysitting platform where all babysitters earn the same and face no competitive pressure to improve might produce mediocre service. A platform where babysitters compete purely on price might drive them to unsustainable rates. WikiDeal's model allows babysitters to compete on quality, specialisation, availability, and approach, while cooperating on the platform Infrastructure, the legal frameworks that protect them, the dispute resolution systems that keep trust high, and the collective advocacy that ensures their working conditions are fair.

=== Competition Fostering Cooperation ===

One of WikiDeal's more counterintuitive observations is that well-structured competition can ''increase'' the incentive to cooperate. When a babysitter in Geneva knows that a family who has a bad experience will simply choose a different babysitter (competition), she is more motivated to contribute to the platform features that raise overall quality — better contract templates, clearer dispute resolution, improved communication tools — because these improvements also benefit her relative to less cooperative competitors.

One of WikiDeal's more counterintuitive observations is that well-structured competition can ''increase'' the incentive to cooperate. When a babysitter in Geneva knows that a family who has a bad experience will simply choose a different babysitter (competition), she is more motivated to contribute to the platform features that raise overall quality, better contract templates, clearer dispute resolution, improved communication tools, because these improvements also benefit her relative to less cooperative competitors.

This dynamic is structurally similar to how GNU/Linux kernel developers, while sometimes competing intensely for technical influence and organizational position, cooperate on the shared codebase because the codebase is more valuable to everyone when it is better. The competition happens at the level of ideas and contributions; the cooperation happens at the level of shared Infrastructure.

=== The [[Gov/en/Portal:R&D/Open-~~Call~~:Main|Open Call]] as Cultural Expression ===

=== The [[Gov/en/Portal:R&D/Open-Calls:Main|Open Call]] as Cultural Expression ===

The Open Calls process is WikiDeal's most explicit institutional expression of co-opetition. Proposers compete for recognition and funding; but in order to compete effectively, they must engage seriously with the existing model and with competing proposals. The process creates what the WikiDeal founder calls "productive criticism", critique that must be constructive to win, and cooperation that must be rigorous to be credible. The result is a community that is simultaneously competitive (producing better proposals) and cooperative (improving the shared platform).

== Beyond crowdfunding: crowdsourcing and cooperative co-ownership ==

WikiDeal explores a new form of co-opetition that goes beyond [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdfunding crowdfunding]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing crowdsourcing] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative cooperative] co-ownership of an '''ecosystem of agreements''', the agreements themselves and their management, under free licences by principle. What Wikipedia did for knowledge and W3C standards did for the web, WikiDeal aims to explore for agreements.

=== Commons-based criteria, public and auditable ===

The central notion is a set of common-good criteria that would be public and auditable, following the model of open standards: the [https://validator.w3.org/ HTML validator] of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web_Consortium World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)], or Wikipedia's [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view neutral point of view] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources reliable sources] criteria. This line of work also draws on research on the governance of commons, notably by [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom Elinor Ostrom].

=== Applicable to every domain ===

This exploration is intended to apply to every domain. A few illustrations:

* commerce and marketplaces;

* participatory and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_science citizen science];

* energy, for example [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_community energy communities];

* medical research and applications, for example generic medicines under free licences, a direction explored by initiatives such as the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drugs_for_Neglected_Diseases_initiative Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative];

* land ownership and housing, for example [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_cooperative housing cooperatives].

Contract models developed in this frame could release researchers from the pressure to privatise their results, since everything produced within WikiDeal is intended to be released under free licences.

=== From niches to global ===

The explicit policy is to start with niches (the [[Gov/en/Portal:R&D/Pilot-Use-Cases|pilot use cases]] of [[Gov/en/Portal:Meta/Prototype-1|Prototype 1]]) and to aim, over time, at global reach.

=== A cooperative micro-entrepreneurial balance ===

As a basis for discussion, not a doctrine, WikiDeal explores an approach that remains entrepreneurial but promotes micro-entrepreneurship in a cooperative, public-interest and non-speculative context, on the short and the long term. This is proposed as a possible path of balance between speculative accumulation on one side and, on the other, models that constrain creativity and the right to have merit recognised through results.

== Merit through research contributions ==

In the Wikimedia ecosystem, legitimacy for stewardship roles grows with the quantity and quality of a contributor's edits, as illustrated by Wikipedia's [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship requests for adminship] process. WikiDeal explores a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy merit]-based model adapted to another kind of contribution: the capacity to bring ideas that answer fundamental questions of society, transformed into research questions and solution hypotheses, tested with states of the art, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinded_experiment double-blind studies], data collection, and qualitative and quantitative analyses.

The process being explored could unfold as follows:

# An idea is proposed by a person.

# An open working group forms to formalise it: this pre-call stage defines the call.

# The launch of the call is validated in the most citizen-driven way possible: it is submitted to the comments of the community of researchers, rather than decided by a Steering Committee; committees would emerge progressively within the [[Gov/en/Portal:R&D/Open-Calls:Main|Open Calls]].

# The call is launched: each call includes a provided state of the art and a series of priority and secondary questions; the answers generate quality criteria that draw notably on existing frameworks such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_9000 ISO 9000] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing Lean management].

# Leadership is attributed to one or several persons who interact, on the model of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictator_for_life benevolent dictator], and who could involve their university, creating a link with the institutional world.

# The research programme could then move to an incubator of [[Gov/en/Portal:R&D/User-Group-Maturity|User Groups]]: the User Group manages the quality criteria of its own domain (finance, research, transport, housing, family, use of common resources: spaces, equipment, rules).

# Roles evolve: some contributors stay in research mode, others move to deployment, simplification and production, always with quality criteria, free licences, and exploitation authorisations earned through demonstrated merit rather than through personal connections or purely theoretical credentials without practical demonstration.

# As an intended outcome, micro-entrepreneurs could generate revenue in the domains of the [[Market:Home|Market]] through applications resulting from this process.

The ~~Open Call process is WikiDeal's most explicit institutional expression of co~~-~~opetition. Proposers compete for recognition~~ and ~~funding; but in order to compete effectively~~, ~~they must engage seriously with the existing model~~ and ~~with competing proposals. The process creates what Théo Bondolfi calls "productive criticism" — critique that must be constructive to win~~, ~~and cooperation that must be rigorous to be credible. The result is~~ a ~~community that is simultaneously competitive (producing better proposals)~~ and cooperative ~~(improving the shared platform)~~.

The domains considered include finance, public and para-public services and their subcontractors, transport, housing, family life and common resources, in a citizen and cooperative context rather than a top-down one.

'''See also:'''

[[Category:Migration June 2026]]

[[Category:Innovation]]