(11) zuboff_ch3_pts_VII-VIII

VII. The Secrets of Extraction

Extraction imperative: raw-material supplies must be procured at an ever expanding scale.

Mass-produced products result in an increased perception of public need. Supply and demand get connected to conditions of existence.

Surveillance capitalism doesn't work on supply and demand – – users become the means to the ends of Google and advert partners.

Secrecy became institutionalized via the "hiding strategy." All Google parties worked hard to keep the secret – – to hide the technology and the way it worked from users and of course from journalists.

Secrecy at this scale gets confused with traditional trade secrets. Trade secrets are protected by state law and can include business practices. However, business processes that stand as trade secrets normally specify a particular single process: a one click shopping cart for example or the formula for Coca-Cola. Trade secrets do not usually extend to general lack of transparency about "how we do our business." Hiding how we do our business is more like the mob or a cartel than a company with a trade secret.

Remember that when users purchase software and services one could assume that they have some decision rights and some privacy rights. Google's way of doing business obviated both.

The term "targeted marketing" for example sounds as though Google is doing the user a favor by shaping advertising delivery to user preferences. To the contrary, that term actually means that Google is targeting users to extract their data and then using that data against users to ship ads that appear to be relevant to the user.

Zuboff aligns the Google story with that of the Facebook. Sheryl Sandberg moved Facebook from a social media company to an advertising behemoth by using surveillance capitalism techniques.

VIII. summarizing the logic and operations of surveillance capitalism

Serving the genuine needs of people is less lucrative than selling predictions of their behavior. We are less valuable than others that's on our future behavior.

The logic:  translating non-market interactions with users into surplus raw material for the fabrication of products aimed at genuine market transactions with its real customers: advertisers.

Imagine any other company that could create valuable raw material out of thin air at a zero marginal cost

Surveillance assets – – surveillance revenues – – surveillance capital – – the logic of surveillance capitalism and a surveillance economy. Users become the means to others’ ends.

The means of production: constantly evolving machine intelligence – – the ultimate tape worm

The products: behavioral surplus processed into prediction products

The marketplace: prediction products are sold in behavioral futures markets (I refer to it as the data marketplace—the single most lucrative unregulated financial market on the planet).