Platform power rests on structural influence over data, not revenue size.
Evidence
By itself, the social quantification sector might be less economically significant than others and certainly not as significant as mainstream opinion would lead us to believe. But it plays a key role in the overall structuring of the Cloud Empire and the shaping of the social world around it. Its smaller economic role is more than made up for by its enormous influence on data processing and business models within the wider social order built around data colonialism. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 206
Categorization
- XREF: Parallels how attention/surveillance schools also locate platform power in structural position rather than raw profit. — connects to: Critique of data platforms must target power relations, not ethics lapses — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 443; Platform monopolies are also monopsonies over the data users produce — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 174; Platform profit comes from commodifying user data by-products rather than selling ads — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 40 (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Critique of data platforms must target power relations, not ethics lapses
#expands(0.85) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 443 - The key platform struggle is denaturalizing data abstraction, not securing payment for data
#expands(0.85) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 781 - Platform monopolies are also monopsonies over the data users produce
#expands(0.80) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 174 - Platform competition shifts from price to data as the competitive criterion
#expands(0.78) — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 81 - Platform profit comes from commodifying user data by-products rather than selling ads
#expands(0.75) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 40 - Regulation like the GDPR reshapes but does not dissolve data-colonial power.
#corroborates(0.72) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 591