Competition among voice platforms is a race to corner all conversation

Evidence

In pursuit of the what and the how of voice surplus, the logic of competition is to corner as much supply as possible. The urge toward totality generates competitive pressures to become the run time and the new interface: the dominant, if not exclusive, medium through which we access and engage the apparatus as it engages us. It’s a race to corner all the talk as a prerequisite for achieving the privileged status of the One Voice, which will bestow upon the winner the ability to anticipate and monetize all the moments of all the people during all the days. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 835

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Milgrom mechanism-design reading: competition here is not over prices but over becoming the default information-clearinghouse — a reputational/interface monopoly rather than a product monopoly. — connects to: Every Alexa territory expansion increases the voice surplus Amazon extracts — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 839; A single dominant voice interface erases the boundary between self and market — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 831
• SEED: Article angle: ‘the competition to become the run time’ — how platform competition operates on a different axis than classical market competition, winning by becoming the interface itself rather than the best product.