Traditional manufacturing was information-lossy, necessitating the platform model.

Evidence

The problem for capitalist firms that continues to the present day is that old business models were not particularly well designed to extract and use data. Their method of operating was to produce a good in a factory where most of the information was lost, then to sell it, and never to learn anything about the customer or how the product was being used. While the global logistics network of lean production was an improvement in this respect, with few exceptions it remained a lossy model as well. A different business model was necessary if capitalist firms were to take full advantage of dwindling recording costs. This chapter argues that the new business model that eventually emerged is a powerful new type of firm: the platform. — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 45

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘lossy’ factory model framing offers a productive contrast to Zuboff’s account — the driver is business-model inadequacy, not surveillance capitalism’s behavioral surplus. — connects to: Falling manufacturing profits drove capitalism toward data extraction via platform monopolies — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 17

Related

• Falling manufacturing profits drove capitalism toward data extraction via platform monopolies (similarity 0.87)
• Platforms are the first business model with data extraction built into their core DNA (similarity 0.85)
• Falling recording costs turned data from peripheral to central capitalist resource. (similarity 0.81)
• Industrial platforms extract data to cement monopolies over global manufacturing (similarity 0.80)
• Platform companies converge into similar forms as they compete for the same data. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Falling manufacturing profits drove capitalism toward data extraction via platform monopolies #expands (0.85) — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 17