Data’s abstract interchangeability, Marx’s commodification logic, is the root of data-relation power imbalances.

Evidence

Whether immediately commodifiable or not, the data extracted has potential value in a wider space of equivalence in which the individual’s distinctive properties as a data source can be ignored (this abstractness is exactly how Marx understood commodification to operate). The commodification of exchangeable data is the end goal of data relations and is, as Matthew Crain notes, “the root of [their] power imbalances.” — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 139

Categorization

• DEFINE: Specifies how commodification of data operates via abstraction — the mechanism that matters for comparing colonialism and surveillance frames.
• XREF: connects to: Data’s commodifiability rests on abstracting away individual distinctiveness; Administered rationality works by reducing qualitative differences to commensurable equivalents. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays…, 152

Broader Connections

• Data’s commodifiability rests on abstracting away individual distinctiveness #expands (0.92)
• Administered rationality works by reducing qualitative differences to commensurable equivalents. #corroborates (0.82) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 152