Data analytics progressed from describing internal data to prescribing every process and behavior

Evidence

Davenport distinguishes three phases in the development of data analytics: whereas early analytics was essentially “descriptive,” collecting companies’ internal data for discrete analysis, the period since 2005 has seen the emergence of the ability to extract value from large unstructured and increasingly diverse external and internal data sets through “predictive” analytics that can find patterns in what appears to have no pattern. Today’s “analytics 3.0” uses large-scale processing power to extract value from vast combinations of data sets, resulting in a “prescriptive analytics” that “embed[s] analytics into every process and employee behavior.” Once the world is seen by capitalism as a domain that can and so must be comprehensively tracked and exploited to ensure more profit, then all life processes that underlie the production process (thinking, acting, consuming, and working in all its dimensions and preconditions) must be fully controlled too. This principle, made possible by technological connection, is the engine that drives the capitalization of human life in its twenty-first-century form, and its remit goes much wider than social media platforms. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 79

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clearly defines descriptive vs predictive vs prescriptive analytics — a useful conceptual schema for distinguishing data-colonial extractive logics.
• QUESTION: The claim that capitalism ‘must’ track and exploit all life because it ‘can’ — worth probing whether this necessity framing holds up empirically.
• XREF: connects to: Data mining actively reshapes and changes human minds — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1680; Data extraction annexes life processes beyond productive labor — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 143; Measuring attention as data enables treating it as a monetizable resource (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Data mining actively reshapes and changes human minds #expands (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1680
• Sharing-economy platforms fuse data extraction with labor at unprecedented scale #expands (0.75)
• Facebook data employees work continuously to influence users’ moods and behavior #expands (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 940
• Data extraction annexes life processes beyond productive labor #expands (0.72) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 143
• Measuring attention as data enables treating it as a monetizable resource #expands (0.72)
• Corporate rationality masks everyday data extraction as routine business rather than appropriation #expands (0.72) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 101
• Falling manufacturing profits drove capitalism toward data extraction via platform monopolies #expands (0.72) — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 17
• Data extraction extends capitalism’s exploitation to all human life, echoing colonial raw-material logic #expands (0.70) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 42
• Corporate data-as-asset rhetoric reframes untapped user data as a trillion-dollar revenue source #expands (0.70) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 506