> almost everyone produces for free
From that perspective the quote above is a lie: workers receive service in exchange for data they generate. It is in his own Google Maps example.
From that perspective the quote above is a lie: workers receive service in exchange for data they generate. It is in his own Google Maps example.
What if everyone gave their data to Open Street Map instead?
But sure, there's a point about users that generate the value in these tech platforms do also get value from the services. Whether the value is worth the cost is another matter. What's clear is that users don't have much say in the arrangement. The corporations have the organized power, the users are divided and disorganized. There's no users' union.
Any Google Maps user can switch to Open Street Map on a whim unlike feudalism peasants. Arguably, the current best economic theory basically says that because exchange takes place assuming users are rational enough, the exchanged value is identical.
One would need a stronger argument than calling it "work for free" here, when it is obviously not free.
> Arguably, the current best economic theory basically says that because exchange takes place assuming users are rational enough, the exchanged value is identical.
I'll take that argument. If that's the best economic theory, it just validates my assertion that the field of economics is mostly a farce.
That "theory" is nothing but a say-so assertion that doesn't even try to look for evidence. It's unfalsifiable BS.
Some platforms provide great value. But the world is full of cases of middle-men and gatekeepers that have worked their way into that position and are little more than extractive. They might as well not exist. The reason people choose to go through them is for the value they get from the end exchange, not because they prefer to go through the middle-man. It all depends on the particular cases. The phenomenon of rent-seeking middle-men is not some myth.
The whole discussion here is about the idea of power dynamics. It isn't about the boring waste-of-time topic of just attributing "value" conceptually. If you enjoy playing Mozart's music on the piano, that has "value" to you, but "extraction" is a poor metaphor, and there's no power dynamics at play, it's just life.
The only thing interesting in this topic is the question of concentrated power and who has power to control decisions about how things are set up in society. Google has set up an arrangement where they are extremely profitable and a relatively small number of people get to decide how their platforms work, and the divided users only have the choice to take-it-or-leave-it (and network effects push them into it, schools and businesses and others use the systems, you better also, and the mere fact of all the value captured there makes it hard for competition to arise).
This is a question of organizing, collective action etc. The executives at Google can make decisions and they have a whole organizational system to carry out their will. There's no organized power for the users. The label "techno-feudalism" doesn't argue that value doesn't exist or that the serfs are literal slaves.
Perhaps they are being tricked into this, but that is a separate problem, which article does not address.