A significant aspect of the evolution of the Internet is what is known as the participatory web, characterized, in the Web 2.0 phase, by the possibility offered to users to publish their content online.
This mode of network user interaction is not only typical of the Social Media sphere-think of Facebook (2004) where users can make textual, visual, and audio posts or even YouTube (2005) for the video component-but more generally it also concerns platforms such as Wikipedia (2001) that have built new cultural architectures based on participativeness and thus on the contribution of users as content generators.
As is acutely described in the work “Wikinomics – The Mass Collaboration that is Changing the World” by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, the digital work and time of users is exploited to generate value for platform operators, think for example of the comments of tourists on Trip Advisor or Booking or Airbnb, which help to classify and describe accommodations. In fact, the participatory, free and voluntary activity of users has also given rise to collaborative projects of considerable importance and collective interest, such as “open source” software platforms, that is, with source code open to contributions and modifications, and usually usable free of charge.
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