Colonial-style ownership extends to device production and cloud computing capacity

Evidence

There are many additional layers of colonial-style ownership. One is domination over production of the “tethered” devices through which human beings connect to the infrastructures of data collection (by “tethered,” we mean a device whose use ties users to reliance on a particular operating system or set of proprietary products: think of Apple but also of the use restrictions built into most portable devices). Another is power over the computing capacity that enables large-scale processing and storage of data, usually known as the cloud, a mystificatory term. (Amazon by the end of 2017 already had 51.8 percent of global market share, rivaled only by Microsoft with 13.3 percent, the Chinese Alibaba with 4.6 percent, and Google with 3.3 percent.) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 92

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘tethered’ devices and reframes the cloud as a mystificatory term for concentrated computing power.
• ADDENDUM: The ‘cloud as mystificatory term’ echoes the infrastructure-hiding tendency I discuss in ‘Grafting & Growth’ about unseen material infrastructures, useful parallel.
• XREF: connects to: Cloud capital is physical networked machinery plus unwaged user labor — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 850; Renting cloud infrastructure yields data extraction alongside rental income — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 60; Global cloud giants are absorbing Southeast Asian small-trader platforms. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 488 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Renting cloud infrastructure yields data extraction alongside rental income #expands (0.80) — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 60
• Cloud capital is physical networked machinery plus unwaged user labor #qualifies (0.75) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 850