Article from Festim Rizanaj
Evgeny Morozov estimates that “…in this day and age, Silicon Valley mediates everything… Every moment we spend awake (perhaps even sleeping) can be turned into money. For this reason, we are required to be innovative in data, to shape our data portfolios. The dataization (turning into data) of everything represents an extension of the issue of the financialization of everyday life. So, by 'financializing' everyday life, everything is turning into data.” If I don't share data, if you don't share it, then how will Web 2.0 (including social media) create its own content?
The world of spectacle, nowadays, has expanded to the extent that the stage also includes the audience (viewers). We are in the world of spectacle, where the viewer and the viewed are intertwined. Moreover, in social media, not only has the boundary between viewer/viewed been removed, but it also leaves the distinction between producer/consumer undefined. Can we talk about a network like Facebook if millions of people do not post their data, photos and videos on this network? Youtube consists of videos recorded by millions of people with their personal cameras and uploaded to the system without any interest. So, the creator of this system, who offers people the service without any payment, also does not offer any significant payment for the prepared products, unless it generates high traffic of video content uploaded to this virtual space. This leads to the classic economic question of who is the producer and who is the consumer?
man prosumer
In principle, the digital age has changed the concepts of producer and consumer, and some even say that it has paved the way for a new type of capitalism. The first to speak on this issue was Alvin Toffler, who in 1980 – by combining the terms producer and consumer – proposed the concept ProsumerSo, man Prosumer is not only a producer, but also a consumer of what is produced by him. According to Toffler, the dividing line between producer and consumer is becoming increasingly blurred. With the era prosumer, Toffler defines the advent of a new form of political and economic democracy through self-productive independence, local production, labor independence, self-determined labor. But critics say that the era Prosumer It does not take into account the use of labor (unpaid labor) of consumers and users as an external resource. And, thus, companies reduce labor and investment costs, while consumers who work for free are exploited.
The concept in question, which has been updated and put into circulation by connecting it to the Internet, is George Ritzer. In his book "The McDonaldization of Society,” he draws attention to the reflection of the standardization of production and consumption in society. According to Ritzer, wherever you go in the world, in addition to enjoying the same taste of hamburgers, you also notice that fast food has become a symbol of standardization from the economy to social life. In the recent study called Prosumer Capitalism, Ritzer emphasizes that the producer-consumer type in the fast food industry can also be applied to the new media of the digital world. Just as you self-serve in fast food restaurants, we can also talk about consumers who upload their product to the internet platform.
This type of prosumer of the Internet represents a very attractive mass for capitalists. Because, if it were not for this type of human, the websites in Web 2.0 would remain non-functional. So, if in most of these websites “the work is not done by the masses”, these websites could not exist. For example, on Youtube so many videos are uploaded from everyday life and from different places, that with the classic logic of the company it is impossible to implement this in exchange for money (salary).
Social media and their content
Social media users, who upload videos or photos, who write comments or messages on the wall, who view friends' profiles, and who add friends on Facebook, constitute the consumer commodity sold to advertisers. As Dallas Smythe points out, viewership is a commodity that controls price, because it is produced, sold, bought, and consumed.
The producer/consumer type of person, it seems, is happy with the work he does. Because, by uploading data to “Google documents”, by uploading photos to Instagram, by creating links related to the work he does and by communicating via Facebook, by watching videos on Youtube, he does not pay anything. But, in fact, although perhaps not individually, but seen as a whole, they make an important payment: while using these free services, personal data is shared with companies, which then offer you advertisements based on your searches. While in traditional media, advertisements were not individual, the Web 2.0 environment has the capacity and technology to orient advertisements towards the individual, this through different logarithms. Thus, if you change your status on Facebook, you will encounter advertisements based on your new status. Or, if you buy books online, then on your Facebook wall you will see advertisements related to the books you have purchased. So, as users, without realizing it, the biggest price we pay is the detailed information we give the business world about ourselves and our choices. No matter how much content we post or create on social media, those platforms will provide data about us.
On the other hand, with the start of receiving click-based advertising from YouTube and Instagram, content owners began to act as entrepreneurs. There are those who, through these platforms, manage to market their privacy through data. Evgeny Morozov emphasizes that everyone will market their privacy as data: “If data turns into a money-printing machine, then we will all become entrepreneurs. This means the extreme financialization of everyday life. Then people will decide to turn thoughts and feelings, events and phenomena about themselves into money; because, if these come out in the open, then they will find a buyer on the free market.”
Therefore, we must be careful when thinking that the platforms mentioned above offer free services, not forgetting that the content of those platforms is produced by "us" and consumed by "us", while someone else profits.