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Technofeudalism

penguin.com.au

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Re: Technofeudalism

#11

Post by mempko »

yamazakiwi wrote: post #7
davisr wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I won't take his ideas seriously because of superficial reasons, and I don't have any actual arguments against his thesis, so I must throw mud and hope something sticks."

Because this thesis is stupid This framing is silly. He says we're Cloud Serfs because we do unpaid work whenever we use our phones... You're not a Serf for using social media or watching videos online, regardless of how much value is extracted by these companies. You contributed nothing to the dialogue surrounding the topic that you are supposedly defending from mud throwing.

Explain how we are not cloud serfs?

Re: Technofeudalism

#12

Post by cma »

voxleone wrote: post #3

He may have been wrong in the past, but this insight seems to be spot on. I'm pretty satisfied with what is to me a faithful description of the zeitgeist. Related article: https://theconversation.com/is-capitalism-dead-yanis-varoufa...

He worked for Valve, a 30% app store, on making an economy of consumer producers to make digital hats for them to resell, but never seems to mention it in interviews for this new book. Does he discuss it in the book? He seems to have been an early architect of the "cloud capital"/"technofeudalism" system.

Re: Technofeudalism

#13

Post by yamazakiwi »

mempko wrote: post #11
yamazakiwi wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this thesis is stupid This framing is silly. He says we're Cloud Serfs because we do unpaid work whenever we use our phones... You're not a Serf for using social media or watching videos online, regardless of how much value is extracted by these companies. You contributed nothing to the dialogue surrounding the topic that you are supposedly defending from mud throwing.

Explain how we are not cloud serfs?

Serfs work, it is not work to read blogs or watch videos.

Re: Technofeudalism

#14

Post by arrosenberg »

dingnuts wrote: post #8

I haven't read the book but in this pull quote from a related article linked in the comments >Traditional capitalists, he proposes, have become “vassal capitalists”. They are subordinate and dependent on a new breed of “lords” – the Big Tech companies – who generate enormous wealth via new digital platforms. A new form of algorithmic capital has evolved – what Varoufakis calls “cloud capital” – and it has displaced “…

> Also, in this definition, why are the "lords" able to "generate enormous wealth" just like capitalists?

Feudal lords generated their wealth from exploiting the lands they held. Generally, they don't make more land, but when the world wide web came into being, there was suddenly a ton of new land! Between 2000-2015, the tech giants consolidated much of that land (and thus the wealth) - giants like Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Adobe and MSFT can absolutely be viewed as imperialist, and they operate in that manner internally.

> So.. is Facebook forcing me to hand over some of my wealth by using violence, with the agreement that they will also use their monopoly on violence to protect me from Snapchat, if I sign up to Facebook?

Kind of. Facebook is using economic and legal violence, rather than physical. They won't send a squad of knights to your house to punish you, but they are attempting to create a system where your only options are to use their service, in the manner they want you to use it (i.e. the one that maximizes their revenues). Why run a business when you can collect the gabelle?

Sure, they don't own Snapchat, they certainly tried, but they own Instagram, Whatsapp, and hundreds of other startups they've taken out of the market. You still have some options (TikTok, Snapchat) because Meta's dominance is incomplete and the state doesn't fully support them having a monopoly.

Re: Technofeudalism

#16

Post by n_ary »

dingnuts wrote: post #8

I haven't read the book but in this pull quote from a related article linked in the comments >Traditional capitalists, he proposes, have become “vassal capitalists”. They are subordinate and dependent on a new breed of “lords” – the Big Tech companies – who generate enormous wealth via new digital platforms. A new form of algorithmic capital has evolved – what Varoufakis calls “cloud capital” – and it has displaced “…

You are picking very specific points. Think about the online death, if you misbehave or the google seo index misunderstand something, your business is theoratically dead.

If FB decides to suddenly block you by automoderator a few times, you lose access to your community.

If paypal bans your account by mistake or whatever, they can withold your assets in that account and you have no remedy.

These techs are like feudal lords, they can perform "virtual" violence to cut you off but most of your actions actually builds them wealth (you engage to build community, your views brings them ad money, your content may bring their advertisers sales, you using a particular service will bring them cut of any transaction that you perform, your bid on their platform will make them money despite you having zero control, you selling products on their platform will have to give them a big cut while you also need to spend more for their platform to promote your stuff etc.)

It is a bit complex and needs some deeper thought than simply looking at the surface.

Re: Technofeudalism

#19

Post by RandomLensman »

dingnuts wrote: post #8

I haven't read the book but in this pull quote from a related article linked in the comments >Traditional capitalists, he proposes, have become “vassal capitalists”. They are subordinate and dependent on a new breed of “lords” – the Big Tech companies – who generate enormous wealth via new digital platforms. A new form of algorithmic capital has evolved – what Varoufakis calls “cloud capital” – and it has displaced “…

Because large banks don't have enormous revenue or profits while not being super reliant on the tech lords? Traditional capitalist are doing quite well, I think.

Re: Technofeudalism

#20

Post by boringg »

yamazakiwi wrote: post #4

It's difficult to take this seriously. Cloud Serfs? ...really? He names these new capitalists Vassal Capitalists and then makes the title of the book What Killed Capitalism.

Agreed it's a stretch at best. But to sell books you need something loud to make it through the noise.
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