Inequality serves surveillance capitalism as a lever for extracting consent

Evidence

Varian reasons that inequality offers an opportunity to raise the ante on Google’s quid pro quo for effective life. He counsels that the way to predict the future is to observe what rich people have because that’s also what the middle class and the poor will want. “What do rich people have now?” he asks rhetorically. “Personal assistants.” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 800

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader surveillance capitalism thesis and to Veblen’s conspicuous consumption as a driver of emulation dynamics. — connects to: Social software can promote inequality rather than counter it. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 19; Seamless data flows breed opaque inequality and uncontrolled surveillance — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 607; Digital inclusion of the poor comes at the cost of predatory data profiling — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 242 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: Is Varian actually articulating a deliberate strategy of exploiting inequality, or rationalizing an emergent market logic? Worth probing the boundary between intent and structural outcome.

Broader Connections

• Surveillance capitalism rests on extreme inequalities of knowledge and power #corroborates (0.90) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 45