A prediction product’s value grows with its approximation to certainty

Evidence

The quality and competitiveness of the product are a function of its approximation to certainty: the more predictive the product, the lower the risks for buyers and the greater the volume of sales. Google has learned to be a data-based fortune-teller that replaces intuition with science at scale in order to tell and sell our fortunes for profit to its customers, but not to us. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 304

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the core unit of surveillance capitalism: prediction products whose value scales with their closeness to certainty.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s founding interest in behavioral surplus and prediction markets as the new capitalism. — connects to: Guaranteed prediction products require causal knowledge gained through experiments — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 931; Tech platforms profit by embedding uncertainty, not by minimizing it — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 183

Broader Connections

• Tech platforms profit by embedding uncertainty, not by minimizing it #complicates (0.72) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 183