Platforms extract value from each transaction without absorbing employment obligations

Evidence

The gig economy, for all its limitations, has significance as an exemplar of where capitalism is heading. Platforms and apps do the work of connecting demand (people looking to hire someone to do a job) to supply (temp workers willing to perform that job for a price set by the platform). Because the economic transactions happen within and through the platform, companies are able to benefit by taking a cut from each transaction, through advertising, or by extracting data from the transactions that they can then sell to third parties, all the while washing their hands of any messy contractual obligations between themselves and the users (some platforms simply charge giggers to bid on jobs, regardless of whether they get the job). This is monopsony in action. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 220

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines monopsony as a one-buyer market that gig platforms embody, a useful conceptual term.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 220
• 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 surplus value produced elsewhere without producing any themselves — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 872; Sharing-economy platforms fuse data extraction with labor at unprecedented scale (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Platforms extract surplus value produced elsewhere without producing any themselves #expands (0.95) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 872
• An everything app charges vendors rent and extracts free labor from users #expands (0.90) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 513
• Zero marginal costs force platforms to extract rent rather than earn profit #expands (0.85) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 999
• Sharing-economy platforms fuse data extraction with labor at unprecedented scale #expands (0.80)
• Platforms replace markets with fiefdoms and profit with cloud rent #complicates (0.80)