Mobile-device shift forced Facebook to master surplus capture anew

Evidence

Facebook’s IPO in 2012 was notoriously botched when last-minute downward revisions of its sales projections, precipitated by the rapid shift to mobile devices, led to some unsavory dealings among its investment bankers and their clients. But Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and their team quickly mastered the nuances of the dispossession cycle, this time to steer the company toward mobile ads. They learned to be skilled and ruthless hunters of behavioral surplus, capturing supplies at scale, evading and resisting law, and upgrading the means of production to improve prediction products. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 502

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Users freely did unpaid labor that increased Facebook’s own value — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1011; Google’s behavioral surplus became a zero-cost asset diverted to market exchange — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 255; Surveillance-based mobile advertising made Facebook among the largest companies worldwide — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 503

Broader Connections

• Users freely did unpaid labor that increased Facebook’s own value #expands (0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1011
• Surveillance-based mobile advertising made Facebook among the largest companies worldwide #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 503
• Google’s behavioral surplus became a zero-cost asset diverted to market exchange #corroborates (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 255