Data relations extend capital extraction beyond labor into all social life

Evidence

Data relations make the appropriation of human beings’ data seem normal, just the way things are. Data relations are of many sorts, but all share one basic feature: they ensure informational resources (data) for capitalism in areas of human life that, previously, were not considered direct inputs to production. Far outside the sphere of normal productive activity, ordinary social interaction is increasingly lived in environments of continuous data collection, behavior prediction, and choice shaping. But this is possible only because social actors now enter more or less voluntarily into data relations that secure regular data flows for capital. The drive to expand data relations explains a lot about contemporary capitalism. So, for example, it is the need to make data relations routine everywhere that drives Facebook’s offer of simplified internet connection (Facebook Free Basics) in more than twenty countries with weak or uneven internet infrastructure, principally in Africa. The emergence of data relations increasingly complements labor relations’ contribution to capitalism’s reproduction. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 85

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core definition of ‘data relations’ — the pivotal concept distinguishing the data-colonialism school from the reader’s platform-surveillance frame (which centers attention, not data-as-input).
• SEED: Contrasting ‘data relations’ with ‘attention extraction’ would sharpen a comparative review of the two schools.
• XREF: Directly comparable to the reader’s surveillance-capitalism sources (Zuboff-style) which foreground prediction products; here extraction targets ordinary sociality itself, not just behavior prediction. — connects to: Cloud infrastructure shapes social reality by predisposing everyday experience toward datafication. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 173; Data capture for profit is a recent, quality-of-life-altering development — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 38; Platform work fuses data relations with labor relations at unprecedented scale — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 87 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Data extraction annexes life processes beyond productive labor #corroborates (0.95) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 143
• Data extraction extends capitalism’s exploitation to all human life, echoing colonial raw-material logic #expands (0.90) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 42
• Human life as organized through data is the new direct input of capitalism #corroborates (0.88) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 160
• Platform work fuses data relations with labor relations at unprecedented scale #corroborates (0.85) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 87