Activity

[...] lean platforms are entirely reliant on a vast mania of surplus capital. The investment in tech start-ups today is less an alternative to the centrality of finance and more an expression of it. Just like the original tech boom, it was initiated and sustained by a loose monetary policy and by l…

[...] The industrial internet will undoubtedly give rise to some successful firms who may be able for a time to derive extra profit, above and beyond what their competitors receive. The key question, though, is whether or not this in the long-term overcomes the lack of profitability and the overcap…

[...] capitalist competition is driving the internet to fragment. There is no necessity to this outcome, as political efforts can stall or reverse it; but within a capitalist mode of production there are strong competitive pressures towards this end.

A third dominant tendency is the funneling of data extraction into siloed platforms. When extensive means are not sufficient for competitive advantage, this approach tries to tie users and data to the platform by locking them in through various measures: dependency on a service, inability to use al…

they are more like rhizomatic connections