Self-owned digital identity would create competitive markets where platforms now intermediately extract rents

Evidence

How different would the internet be without these New Enclosures? Imagine what you could do if you owned your digital identity and could prove who you are without relying on the combination of a bank card and a corporation like Uber or Lyft that processes that card and all your subsequent travel data. In the same way GPS pinpoints where you presently are, you would have the opportunity to broadcast over the internet: ‘My name is George, I am on the corner of Aristotle and Plato Streets, and I am heading for the airport. Anyone wishing to bid for my ride?’ Within seconds you would receive a multitude of offers from people or outfits licensed to carry passengers, including sage advice from the municipal transit authority like ‘Why not take the metro, located three minutes’ walk from where you are, and much faster than any car can meander its way through traffic?’ Alas, you can’t do this. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 304

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘George at the corner of Aristotle and Plato Streets’ broadcast is a concrete, vivid counterfactual that could anchor an essay on what a commons-based digital identity protocol would change.
• XREF: Builds on the book’s recurring claim that Uber/Lyft are not marketplaces but rent-extracting fiefdoms. — connects to: Platforms replace markets with fiefdoms and profit with cloud rent; Platforms look like markets but are centralized fiefs owned by algorithms — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 868; The shift to platforms concentrates ownership rather than ending it — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 78 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Platforms replace markets with fiefdoms and profit with cloud rent #corroborates (0.90)
• Publicly owned platforms could rival corporate platform control. #corroborates (0.90) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 1201
• Digital identity is privately owned by corporations, not by the person it identifies #corroborates (0.90) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 299
• Platforms look like markets but are centralized fiefs owned by algorithms #corroborates (0.85) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 868
• The shift to platforms concentrates ownership rather than ending it #corroborates (0.80) — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 78
• Platform monopolies are also monopsonies over the data users produce #corroborates (0.80) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 174
• 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