Austin Robey

>>>click here to follow along for what I’m building next<<<

Hi, I’m Austin. I'm interested in collective internet culture, shared ownership, and new models for the online creative economy.

Contact me: austinrobey[at]gmail.com

IG: @michaelcoors

Twitter: @austinrobey_

📍Brooklyn, NY

Current

I’m working on something new.

Also:

Previous

  • Metalabel builds resources, tools, and infrastructure for collectives and creative communities.
  • Ampled is a web-based platform for direct community support of musicians, formed as a collectively owned co-op.
  • Unnamed Friends is a NEW INC member-led, democratically-controlled creative ecosystem grant fund.

Writing

Zines

After the creator economy

Ampled Zine

New Creative Era

Articles

Friends With Benefits: What co-ops and DAOs can learn from each other

Mirror: A guide for designing online community governance

Refraction: Imagining a new creator economy

Dirt: Solid(ar)ity

Dirt: Friends With Benefits

Dirt: Radical Friends

Tally: A simple guide to quadratic voting

Forefront: Ways to improve the ownership economy

The Creative Independent: How to start a cooperative

The Creative Independent: How to create community support systems

FOREFRONT: How community tokens can power cooperatives

Music Ally: Artist ownership is the way to fix Spotify's broken model

Internet of Ownership: Investor-owned platforms vs. User-owned platforms

Mutual Interest: The future of tech will be an old model, the co-op

Internet of Ownership: Equity-Free Fundraising: Here are our Revenue-Share Term Sheets

Ampled: It's time to put new ideas on the table

Press/ Interviews

IDEO: “Cooperatives are an old idea, but they have so much potential for shaping radical futures”

Pioneer Works: How to Unlearn Capitalism through Cooperative Ownership

Protein Agency: Dirty Words Report #3, Ownership

Guardian Bandcamp sells to Epic: can a video game company save independent music?

Decrypt: What would Karl Marx think about crypto?

Slate: The Music Industry Is Finally Scaring Spotify

Water & Music Why AmpledDAO Doesn’t Exist (Yet)

Resident Advisor What Does Epic Games Buying Bandcamp Mean For DIY Music?

Resident Advisor: Decentralized Autonomous Organizations and the Promise of Utopia

Salon: How a punk-inspired collective beat the streaming giants at their own game

AdHoc: Ampled Hopes to Make the Music Industry More Equitable for Artists

Future Laboratory: Neo-collectivism

Fast Company: Tech can still live up to its promise as a force for justice

VICE: There’s No Such Thing as Independent Music in the Age of Coronavirus

VICE: Is There Ethical Music Streaming Under Capitalism?

Washington Post: Inside ‘crypto Woodstock,’ where technologists plot a utopian future

NEW INC: Rewriting the Rulebook: Creating in a Post-COVID World

Speaking

Primavera Pro Madrid 2023

Trust: Will we still be asking people to like and subscribe in 15 years?

Wavelengths Summit 2023(Water & Music): Music Community Building and Decentralization: Lessons from History

Reboot: DAOs and cooperatives

Cooper Union: Artworldbuilding

Crypto, Culture, and SocietyLet’s DAO It: Co-ops, DAOs, and the Way Forward for Collectives

FWB Fest 2022: After Crypto (Required Reading)

WESTAF Creative Vitality Summit: Liberatory Investment Models for the Creative Economy

Betaworks Beyond Decentralization: Designing for Equity, Democracy, and Human Rights in Web3

NEW INC: Life in the speculative future

IDEO: Future Ways of Working

Center For Cultural Innovation: Creative Cooperatives In Practice

Next Gen Entrepreneurship: Platform Co-ops

Owners To Owners: Empowering Your Workers Through Employee Ownership

Cooperation Humbolt: Artists Dismantling Capitalism

Wavelengths Conference 2021: Alternate Streams

Berklee School of Music Innovation Con: Music Models For The New Creative Economy

Platform Cooperativism Conference: NYC 2019

CoCap Nourishing Community Wealth: Oakland 2019

Podcasts/ Radio

Joshua Citarella

Building At The Edges (Seed Club)

Big Brother and the Hodling Company

Culture Journalist

Masters of Community

Refuge Worldwide

Dublab: Peoples Portal w/ Austin Robey

Blockchain Socialist

Cunningham Law Review

FUTURE LEFT

8 Ball Radio

Everything Co-op

Organizations

NEW INC, Y6 Member "Equitable Platforms" Track 2019 & Y7 Community Member of the New Museum cultural incubator

Seed Club Member SC02, social token accelerator DAO

Startupy Curator

Friends With Benefits Member, Events Contributor

Dirt Contributor

Start.coop Y2 cohort member, 2020

Equitable Economy Fund Member

Exit To Community Mentor

Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator Venture Fellow, 2015-2017

US Dept of Arts + Culture People's WPA

Center For Cultural Innovation AmbitioUS investee

Grant For The Web research grantee

David Prize Semi-finalist

Teaching

For the past two years, I’ve been a Visiting Fellow at The New School University for a course titled "Music and Platform Cooperativism".

I've also either spoken at or given guest lectures at:

  • Columbia University
  • School of Visual Arts
  • University of Colorado, Boulder
  • Wake Forest
  • Pratt Institute
  • Parsons
  • New School
  • Berklee School of Music
  • University of Hartford
  • NYU
  • Cooper Union