Early Google reinvested all user behavioral data in improving its own services

Evidence

During this early period, behavioral data were put to work entirely on the user’s behalf. User data provided value at no cost, and that value was reinvested in the user experience in the form of improved services: enhancements that were also offered at no cost to users. Users provided the raw material in the form of behavioral data, and those data were harvested to improve speed, accuracy, and relevance and to help build ancillary products such as translation. I call this the behavioral value reinvestment cycle, in which all behavioral data are reinvested in the improvement of the product or service (see Figure 1). — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 214

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘behavioral value reinvestment cycle’ as a formal concept.
• XREF: Echoes the classic ‘you are the product’ trope that Zuboff is complicating here. — connects to: Google’s data shifted from improving services to generating ad revenue — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 52; Google frames users’ unpaid data contributions as an investment in personalized services. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 764; Early Google ran a self-contained behavioral value reinvestment cycle treating users as ends — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 217

Broader Connections

• Early Google ran a self-contained behavioral value reinvestment cycle treating users as ends #expands (0.92) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 217