Microsoft’s platform metrics reveal the sheer scale of the instrumentarian apparatus

Evidence

In the spring of 2017, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella bounded onstage to open the company’s annual developers’ conference, his slender profile accentuated by the requisite black polo shirt, black jeans, and trendy black high-tops. He quickly dazzled the audience with a roll call of his troops. Nadella recounted the 500 million Windows 10 devices; 100 million monthly users of its Office software; 140 million monthly users of the corporation’s digital “assistant,” Cortana; and more than 12 million organizations signed on to its cloud services, including 90 percent of the Fortune 500. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1270

Categorization

• CANDY: The concrete numbers — 500 million Windows 10 devices, 90 percent of the Fortune 500 on cloud — make for a quick, shareable stat about platform reach.
• ADDENDUM: These platform-scale figures support the surveillance-capitalism infrastructure argument that undergirds the ‘Grafting & Growth’ essay’s account of systems expanding through networked reach.
• XREF: connects to: A platform’s structural position gives it privileged access to record interactions — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 46; Opting out of Microsoft’s Cortana still subjected users to unprecedented data capture — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 515; Internet platforms gained unprecedented power to manufacture user behavior — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 941 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Internet platforms gained unprecedented power to manufacture user behavior #corroborates (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 941
• Instrumentarian power arises from converging surveillance capabilities and monetized behavioral surplus #expands (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1214