Platforms or flatforms? Insights from an auto-ethnographic account of a virtual cycling app

Franck Cochoy

Journal of Cultural Economy, 2025, vol. 18, issue 2, 175-193

Abstract: This paper examines the flatform side of platforms: instead of looking at their abstract and global dimension (platforms as large infrastructures) on which platform studies mostly focus, it traces their local, material and experiential aspects (platforms as flat screen devices: ‘plat’ means ‘flat,’ in French). Based on a personal auto-ethnography of a virtual cycling platform, it suggests that flatforms clearly function as both matching and attaching devices. They do so by providing visual affordances that play with quantified self, qualified self and gamified self features. However, the paper also shows that the seductive power of platforms is challenged by surrounding elements, such as the user’s personal trajectory and the usage environment they create. To meet this challenge, platforms are engaged in a constant work of redesign aimed at attracting and retaining subscribers and their equipment, whatever their specificities.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2024.2405816

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