Mapping the Unknowns: Understanding Digital Platforms and the Search for UK Evidence

Digital platforms have become a central part of the modern economy, shaping how businesses reach customers, how workers and creators participate in markets, and how value is created, captured and distributed. Platform-based business models now underpin many of the world’s most valuable companies, but they also raise important questions about market power, governance and value retention. In the UK context, a key concern is that firms and individuals may help generate value within platform ecosystems, while much of that value is captured by dominant platform owners, often large multinational firms. Despite the growing importance of platforms, there remains limited evidence on the scale, ownership and economic role of digital platform businesses in the UK. This makes it difficult to assess how platformisation affects UK firms and how policy can better support innovation and value retention.

Drawing on existing literature on platform business models, ecosystem governance and digital market regulation, this report examines digital platforms through the lens of governance, value creation and value capture. It shows how platform owners can exercise significant power through their control of digital infrastructure, data, algorithms, access rules and revenue-sharing mechanisms. The companion annex applies a machine learning-assisted identification process, using The Data City’s list-building tool and manual validation, to examine UK digital content streaming platform firms as a methodological case study. From an initial ranked list of 743 UK-based companies, the validation process identifies 94 relevant companies associated with digital content streaming services, including 13 streaming platform owners, as well as UK representatives of international platforms, parent companies, and related organisational entities. Together, the report and annex highlight both the importance and difficulty of mapping the UK digital platform economy. The findings point to a clear policy agenda: strengthen the evidence base on platform ownership and value capture, support UK firms in participating more strategically in platform ecosystems, improve fairness, transparency, and interoperability through credible regulation, and develop governance and investment models that help retain more platform-generated value within the UK economy.

Keywords: digital platforms, digital ecosystems, digital market regulation, digital platforms governance, value creation, value capture, machine learning, digital content streaming services.

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