Platforms extract surplus value produced elsewhere without producing any themselves

Evidence

Figure 1 illustrated the distribution of exchange value under capitalism. Under technofeudalism, the capitalist sector continues (as it did under capitalism) to produce all of the economy’s exchange value. However, the capitalist sector is now embedded into, and is subjugated within, the broader realm of cloud fiefs built on cloud capital. As cloud capital accumulates, due to the unpaid labour of cloud serfs and the cloud rents of the vassal capitalists, more and more of the surplus value generated in the capitalist sector is syphoned off in the form of more cloud rent to the cloudalists. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 872

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lays out the core conceptual mechanics of how cloud rent siphons value from the still-capitalist production sector.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 872
• XREF: connects to: Platforms extract data as a form of unpaid payment from users — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 128; Platforms extract value from each transaction without absorbing employment obligations — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 220; Lean platforms outsource non-tradable jobs globally and shift capital costs onto workers — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 72 (+4 more)