Human data requires active configuration and aggregation before it becomes economically valuable.

Evidence

Human data is not actually raw, but business often imagines it is. Human life first needs to be configured so as to “naturally” generate a resource such as data. Momentary data about one individual’s actions or properties is worthless unless it can be combined with data about other individuals, actions, moments, and properties to generate relations between data points, and that is why an infrastructure has been built to ensure this. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 45

Categorization

• DEFINE: Precisely scopes what data colonialism appropriates: not raw data but life pre-configured to generate relational data.
• XREF: Challenges the ‘data as oil’ framing prominent in attention/surveillance schools by stressing the relational, fabricated nature of data. — connects to: Data are a physical raw material requiring sensing, storage, and cleaning infrastructure. — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 43

Broader Connections

• Data are a physical raw material requiring sensing, storage, and cleaning infrastructure. #corroborates (0.78) — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 43