The 'start-ups' that do not want to be unicorns

In Catalonia, platform cooperativism has been seeking to consolidate its space for years. With the will to question a digital model increasingly concentrated in the hands of large technology corporations, initiatives such as Jamgo, FemProcomuns, or Coopdevs emerge as alternatives that place people and the community at the center. Faced with an internet marked by monopolies, data extraction, and economic dependence, these projects advocate for another way of understanding technology and a different metric of success, based on social impact, democratic governance, and collective return.

This approach translates into technological projects oriented towards the needs of the social economy and the third sector: ERP business management tools, back office solutions, software development, more sustainable websites, in some cases, and digital services for organizations and clients of smaller dimensions. An activity far removed from large valuations and the race to attract investment, but connected with the desire to generate a real impact.

A privileged sector

Jamgo was founded in 2011 with the ambition of building technology that is fairer, more accessible, horizontal, and free, but, above all, because its founders were looking for an alternative after their time in multinationals. “They came back disillusioned from a sector where they felt like a number and where the worker is not taken into account for anything,” explains Marta Gómez, who has been part of the cooperative for ten years as head of communication and project management.

“At Jamgo, all of us who work here earn the same. Our salaries are egalitarian and we don't want to grow at all costs. We are a maximum of twelve people and we don't want to be more because what we want is for all of us to sit at the same table.” With this forcefulness, Marta Gómez claims a way of understanding the company that challenges a good part of the dogmas of the digital economy.

With a commitment that prioritizes participation, proximity, and shared decision-making over size or profitability at any cost, intercooperation “allows us to have more flexibility” when facing challenges that involve more effort. “What we will never do is hire seven new programmers for a project and then lay them off,” assures Gómez. “We don't want to earn more, but to have a dignified life. In fact, ours is a privileged sector in continuous growth and with high labor demand, so we are well paid and what we don't want is to make a big splash to get rich at the expense of others. We promote our own ideas, but with a global perspective,” she emphasizes.

For real technology

Coopdevs is another example of these self-limitations that many cooperatives adopt out of conviction. “Our idea is not to grow, but to grow free software,” summarizes Eugeni Chafer, functional consultant at the cooperative. Founded in 2018, Coopdevs is made up of nine people who work entirely remotely and only meet in person a couple of times a year, and they intercooperate with other cooperatives such as Jamgo itself, with whom, together with Codec (an employment insertion company), they have formed another cooperative called Mosaic to join forces and tackle bigger projects.

"Do we want to create a better world? Sure. The other part of the technological ecosystem is unreal, with startups and investors participating in funding rounds for unviable projects. Some fail, but in fact, the model often consists of turning people into a product and generating needs that didn't exist before," reflects Chafer, who gives the example of home delivery platforms that have modified consumption habits and relationships with services. "Technology should be used to solve real problems," he defends.

However, for Eugeni Chafer, the myth that open source or free software lacks quality because, in addition, it "allows more social control of data. It makes no sense for the administration to work like private companies, where you don't know what use they make of your data, instead of investing in open source codes," he emphasizes.

New combat tools

David Gómez Fontanills, a working partner of FemProcomuns, talks about the need for the development of free software to "respond to people and associations who are looking for other options and do not accept being monitored in exchange for their own work".

FemProcomuns was born eight years ago and for two years has noted the increase in new users conscious of internet surveillance. "Until now, many people said: 'I have nothing to hide.' Now we are more aware of the assault on the power of these multinationals, which have ended up having a direct influence on the American administration and in the defense sector. What seemed to only serve to sell us things has proven to be a tool for concentrating power and social control," he states.

For Gómez Fontanills, the irruption of artificial intelligence is the confirmation of this trend. "We have become raw material. We are no longer just the product from which data was segmented to send us advertising. Now they analyze us to understand how society behaves and to be able to shape it. The good news is that it is very easy to look for alternatives," he assures.

Among these alternatives are services promoted by the cooperative itself, such as SomNúvol – in addition to Xoic, a network for the internet of things. "We are, to put it simply, an alternative to Google Drive, OneDrive or iCloud," explains Gómez Fontanills. Nevertheless, he admits that they play in a different league: "Obviously, we do not have the same infrastructure, nor perhaps should we have it. The water and energy consumption of these large corporations is enormous. In the coming years, we will have to learn to manage resources such as water and energy much better, and this will also force us to rethink the current technological model," he indicates.

Through coordinated local solutions, FemProcomuns establishes links with other cooperatives and opts for a "more sustainable and slow-growth system. In no case do we seek to sell, nor do we have a profit motive." After all, "statistics show that 80% of start-ups fail, those that remain enter the gamble of funding rounds, and some become unicorns. The reality is that what is called Google's graveyard is full of many others that it ends up buying just to shut them down," warns David Gómez Fontanills.