Selling predictions of human behavior superseded serving genuine needs in web economics

Evidence

With Google in the lead, surveillance capitalism rapidly became the default model of information capitalism on the web and, as we shall see in coming chapters, gradually drew competitors from every sector. This new market form declares that serving the genuine needs of people is less lucrative, and therefore less important, than selling predictions of their behavior. Google discovered that we are less valuable than others’ bets on our future behavior. This changed everything. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 293

Categorization

• DEFINE: Articulates the core inversion defining surveillance capitalism as a market form — value shifts from serving needs to selling behavioral predictions.
• DEEPTHINKING: The terse formulation ‘we are less valuable than others’ bets on our future behavior’ condenses the book’s entire thesis into one paradigm-shifting economic claim.
• XREF: connects to: Web 2.0 rhetoric claims business can embody gift-economy values — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 139; Market mechanisms sometimes amplify rather than correct human cognitive limitations — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1207; Volume economies of behavioral surplus gave way to quality of prediction — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 621 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Surveillance capitalist experiments exploit knowledge asymmetry to engineer user behavior for profit #expands (0.82) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 934