The commercialization of volunteer contributions in digital platforms
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Abstract
Digital platforms increasingly rely on the unpaid contributions of volunteers to build, maintain, and scale their products and services. While such contributions generate substantial economic value, the commercialization of volunteer work raises critical questions about organizational control, contributor agency, and community sustainability. This dissertation investigates how commercialization efforts reshape contributor behavior and platform-community dynamics across different stages of monetization, drawing on quantitative case studies of monetization events that took place at two organizations: the Huffington Post and Duolingo. The first study examines Duolingo, considering an increasingly common practice in platform governance, wherein the operator transitions from volunteerism to a model of paid employment, in preparation for an eventual sale or public offering. Focusing on Duolingo’s internal professionalization strategy, I analyze detailed activity logs and internal records from the Duolingo Incubator to investigate how pre-existing organizational commitment shaped volunteers’ decisions to apply for paid roles and their subsequent productivity once hired. While all three forms of commitment—continuance, affective, and normative—influenced these outcomes, continuance commitment—defined as sustained engagement motivated by the perceived benefits of staying and the costs of leaving—emerged as the strongest predictor of both application behavior and post-hire performance. In contrast, affective commitment, while associated with a desire to stay involved, did not consistently translate into productivity under formal employment arrangements.
The second study examines a second form of commercialization event: acquisition. Examining panel data on contributor activity surrounding the announcement of AOL’s acquisition of The Huffington Post, I apply a dynamic difference-in-differences approach to understand causal effects on different groups of contributors. I find that the acquisition led to a significant decline in article submissions, particularly among unpaid contributors and specifically contributors working as professional journalists. These heterogeneous effects offer insight into the underlying mechanisms of contributor disengagement, highlighting how perceived violations of community norms—rather than the acquisition itself—drive withdrawal. Further, the results highlight the critical role of worker identity as a driver of volunteers’ response to commercialization events.
I conclude by discussing open questions in this space and identifying fruitful avenues for future research. Together, these studies advance our understanding of how commercialization reshapes the social contract between digital platforms and their contributors, offering both theoretical and practical insights for platform governance and emphasizing the importance of managing contributor relationships during key organizational transitions.
Description
2025