Free Silicon Valley services are funded by surveillance of users for advertising

Evidence

The logic: Google and other surveillance platforms are sometimes described as “two-sided” or “multi-sided” markets, but the mechanisms of surveillance capitalism suggest something different. Google had discovered a way to translate its nonmarket interactions with users into surplus raw material for the fabrication of products aimed at genuine market transactions with its real customers: advertisers. The translation of behavioral surplus from outside to inside the market finally enabled Google to convert investment into revenue. The corporation thus created out of thin air and at zero marginal cost an asset class of vital raw materials derived from users’ nonmarket online behavior. At first those raw materials were simply “found,” a by-product of users’ search actions. Later those assets were hunted aggressively and procured largely through surveillance. The corporation simultaneously created a new kind of marketplace in which its proprietary “prediction products” manufactured from these raw materials could be bought and sold. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 297 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In Freire’s view, oppressors are only able to be generous because their oppression has enabled them to monopolize resources. Similarly, we may view surveillance capitalists enabling “free” access to their digital tools (such as email, search engines, and social media) as a technique of domination funded by wealth produced through the exploitation of user data. This form of false generosity is used to produce feelings of gratitude and dependence in the user as well as propel the illusion of free choice in the use of these tools. — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 536 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Neoliberal privatization decisions shaped the corporate-controlled internet — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 288; Free digital services are paid for by users’ attention.; Surveillance platforms extract behavioral data from users and sell predictions to advertisers — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 297 (+4 more)

Related

• Free hardware and internet access were traded for personal data and tracking rights (similarity 0.86)
• Free digital tools are false generosity masking data exploitation (similarity 0.85)
• Surveillance platforms extract behavioral data from users and sell predictions to advertisers (similarity 0.84)
• Free digital services are paid for by users’ attention. (similarity 0.83)
• Surveillance capitalists deliberately conceal how their platforms monetize user behavior (similarity 0.82)
• Social media free products are extraction lures, and users are raw-material sources, not products (similarity 0.80)
• Offering free digital tools functions as Freirean false generosity to entrap users (similarity 0.80)
• Surveillance capitalism subordinates earlier user reciprocities to derivative extraction for others’ aims (similarity 0.80)
• Free Wi-Fi kiosks disguised as equity tools siphon data even from non-users. (similarity 0.80)
• Google frames users’ unpaid data contributions as an investment in personalized services. (similarity 0.79)
• Traditional industries like insurance now explicitly covet surveillance revenues modeled on Google (similarity 0.79)
• Users are raw material suppliers whose behavior yields predictive products indifferent to their fate (similarity 0.79)
• Advertising platforms sell analysed targeting promises, not raw data (similarity 0.78)
• Google’s founders saw human experience as free raw material for surveillance capitalism. (similarity 0.78)
• Google’s success stems from radical social relations, not technological prowess alone (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Free digital services are paid for by users’ attention. #expands (0.95)
• Surveillance platforms extract behavioral data from users and sell predictions to advertisers #corroborates (0.95) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 297
• Free digital tools are false generosity masking data exploitation #corroborates (0.90) — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 536
• Surveillance capitalists deliberately conceal how their platforms monetize user behavior #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1411
• Targeted advertising was foundational to surveillance capitalism’s origins #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 202
• Free hardware and internet access were traded for personal data and tracking rights #exemplifies (0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 877