How do platforms change?

This article presents a novel framework for understanding how digital platforms change, integrating institutional theory from a perspective that views platforms as rule-based social orders. We identify five mechanisms of incremental change, situated between the extremes of hyper-stability and collapse. Applying this framework to Airbnb in London during and after the COVID-19 crisis, we find that continuity was the dominant dynamic, with the platform demonstrating resilience and adaptive maintenance despite significant guest-side exhaustion. While hosts’ entries to and exits from the platform declined during the crisis, the platform's overall logic of action remained intact, despite some evidence of conversion, such as an increase in the minimum duration of stays. Notably, professional listings exhibited temporary divergences, but no dramatic shifts occurred between amateur and professional hosts. The framework presented here advances the sociological understanding of platform dynamics by offering a comprehensive tool for analyzing incremental changes and facilitating structured comparisons across platforms, thereby adding to the refiguration of space approach in times of crisis and beyond.