Platforms disaggregate audiences into data profiles sold as equivalent to persons

Evidence

Social media platforms compete for audience attention—perhaps, more accurately, “user” attention, given that the mass formerly known as the audience has been disaggregated through varied means of data extraction designed to create predictable, cybernetic profiles assumed equivalent to a “person,” even though this equivalence is questionable and partial at best. As an oft-repeated aphorism goes, one that descends from Smythe, Serra, and Schoolman, “If you aren’t paying for it, then you are the product.” — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 220