Innovation is of great significance for the improvement of economic and social development, as well as national competition. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China regarded "innovation" and "reform" as the two fundamental driving forces for economic and social development, and set a goal for China's innovative development, which is to "enter the forefront of innovative countries" by 2035. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China reiterated the fundamental driving force of reform and innovation when describing the guiding principles and main goals for economic and social development during the 15th Five Year Plan period. The platform economy demonstrates the enormous driving role of innovation in economic development. Online platforms have become intermediaries for business aggregation in the digital economy industry chain, serving as the driving force behind the development of the digital economy. However, online platforms are also a double-edged sword. While changing the effectiveness of resource allocation and restructuring the market competition pattern, they often bring risks to society. The dual nature of the platform economy poses structural challenges - how to encourage innovation while preventing risks? This requires us to take the path of high-quality development. Reflection on the development model of encouraging first and then governing. From the perspective of development plans and policy documents in recent years, China's attitude towards encouraging innovative development of platform economy has always been firm, and the value of encouraging innovation is generally at the top of the policy agenda. In terms of risk prevention and control, China's platform economy generally follows a development model of "encouraging first and then governing". For example, e-commerce has been around in China since 1998. In 2003, Taobao was established, pioneering a new model of C2C e-commerce. In 2004, JD.com launched its e-commerce business, and various physical stores joined the e-commerce platform. The rapid popularization of e-commerce models has brought convenience to the public, but it has also triggered a series of potential risks, such as privacy breaches, telecommunications fraud, and human flesh searches. The main response method in practice is post governance, and the governance methods are often based on the old system. It was not until 2013 that China officially introduced the Internet legislative plan. The E-commerce Law was promulgated in 2018, more than 20 years after the emergence of e-commerce in 1998. The overall idea of encouraging before governing is clear. For example, the entry of online search platforms and bidding ranking business models into China around 2002 significantly improved the efficiency of information search and advertising placement, but also triggered many risks. Under the concept of encouraging innovation, regulatory authorities remained silent on bidding rankings for a long time until the outbreak of the "Wei Zexi Incident" in 2016. Under public pressure, regulatory authorities quickly introduced regulations to include bidding rankings in the regulatory system of the Advertising Law. At this time, this business model has been prevalent in China for 15 years, and search platforms have been growing wildly for a long time. It is also difficult for the public to restore an objective and neutral attitude towards search platforms. These cases indicate that premature regulation may stifle innovation, while lagging regulation is an endless legacy. The development path of encouraging first and then governing is also very popular internationally, which is in line with the market economy system that advocates freedom of behavior. Under the thinking mode of "freedom without explicit prohibition by law", the concepts of freedom of behavior and freedom of business directly exclude pre regulation, and the risks implied by innovation can only be left for post governance. The advantage of encouraging first and then governing is that, on the one hand, it can fully stimulate the innovation potential of market entities, and on the other hand, it can save the identification and regulation costs caused by information asymmetry in advance. When problems arise afterwards, targeted measures can be taken based on actual problems, which is more cost-effective. Therefore, market entities can freely explore in the market following the profit motive. When there is a risk of harm in commercial innovation, the state will regulate it by formulating new laws or expanding the application of old laws. The rapid development of China's platform economy in the early days was due to the incentive effect of this model. However, the development model of encouraging before governing also has its drawbacks. The platform economy faces numerous difficulties in post governance due to technological barriers, user stickiness, scale effects, and network effects. The rapid dissemination and infinite replication of information make personal privacy irreversible once it is leaked, and once the monopoly structure of the digital market is formed, it is difficult to return to the competitive landscape. Therefore, although the two-stage development model of encouraging first and then governing has driven the rapid development of China's platform economy in the first half, it has also triggered a series of harmful risks and long-term hidden concerns. In addition to the difficulties faced by "transparent people" in the digital age, there are also more hidden systemic risks, such as algorithmic manipulation of the way people think, act, and produce knowledge. This requires us to be vigilant and reflective in the "second half" of platform economic development, and put the relationship between humanistic values and the instrumental rationality of the Internet in order. All technological tools are designed to serve the better development of "people" and must not be reversed. The two-stage development path of encouraging first and then governing is only applicable to regulatory objects that can be reversed afterwards. For areas that may trigger irreversible major systemic risks, this lagging development model should be abandoned. To cope with the "by-products" of the platform economy, we should strive to explore a high-quality development path where innovation and regulation are synchronized. We need to introduce the concept of "dynamic regulation" and dynamically adjust the timing and methods of regulation with the idea of "learning by doing", so that government regulation accompanies the entire process of commercial innovation from germination to maturity, and then to continuous iteration and upgrading. The design of the start-up regulatory system focuses on testing market reactions, and in practice, it is necessary to improve regulatory standards, optimize regulatory tools, and corrective plans in a timely manner based on feedback, so as to keep the overall regulatory system and regulatory targets evolving synchronously. In terms of legislative technology, the "sunset clause" pre-set during legislation can be used to limit the trial period of the new regulatory system in terms of time, and the "experimental legislation" can be used to set up a testing ground for the new regulatory system in terms of space, ensuring that the newly established regulatory system gradually develops and improves in a short period of time and small-scale regulatory experiments. Specifically, attention should be paid to the following two aspects of work. On the one hand, regulation guides high-quality innovation and strives to synchronize regulation with innovation. Innovation is an adventure towards the unknown world, but that doesn't mean innovation is completely unpredictable and unguided. In terms of technological innovation and business model innovation in the platform economy, they are certainly complex and varied. However, based on existing experience, business innovation in the platform economy field includes both enterprise initiated innovation under free competition conditions, such as ride hailing and e-commerce platforms, as well as innovation guided by industrial policies and governance mechanisms, such as technology and business model innovation in intelligent connected vehicles. The former is the result of spontaneous actions taken by enterprises in a competitive market environment; The latter is the result of organized promotion by enterprises under specific policy objectives and governance mechanisms, which is an intermediate path between "autonomy" and "regulation", and also the development path advocated by dynamic regulation theory for innovation and regulation to proceed synchronously. This article refers to it as the "innovation guided development path". The essence of this development path lies in guiding high-quality business innovation through pre-set regulatory goals, striving to synchronize the regulatory process with the innovation process, and avoiding irreversible harmful risks that may arise from encouraging and then governing. On the other hand, innovative achievements can be used to feed back the regulatory system, forming a dynamic feedback loop between innovation and regulation. The platform economy has strong technical, informational, and black box characteristics, and traditional regulatory systems and tools are often difficult to apply directly to the platform economy field. For example, traditional "command and control" methods often fall into the dilemma of being unable to implement in the platform economy due to information asymmetry and technological barriers. If a mandatory ban is issued for a one size fits all approach, this "surgical" regulatory tool may not only inhibit innovation, but also be avoided by some new technology, and even trigger systemic risks. Therefore, the legal regulation of the platform economy must respect the technological rationality of the Internet and the law of industrial development, so it is necessary to introduce technical tools and programs to feed back the regulatory difficulties of the platform economy with the innovative achievements of information technology. This has been attempted in the early stage of the development of the Internet in China. For example, the theory and practice circles call it "network governance" by virtue of Internet technology and industry practice to govern the Internet itself. Along this line of thinking, the high-quality development of platform economy should focus on "responding to innovation with innovation and regulating technology with technology", absorb and transform the innovative achievements of information technology and the best practices of the Internet industry, and use them to feed back the regulatory system to ensure the dynamic interaction between innovation and regulation. (Looking into the New Era) Author: Song Yahui (Professor at the Law School of Nanjing University)