Over the last decade, the digital technologies in everyday life have multiplied. Our lives have been gradually taken over by digital devices, networks, and services. Although useful, they have also become invasive additions to our personal, professional and public lives. This process has occurred in a globalized and deregulated economy and a few US-based start-ups transformed into an oligopoly of multinationals that today govern the informational infrastructure of our societies. This book offers an analytical framework of the contemporary internet studied through the lens of history and political economy. Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft are examined as emblematic products of a new capitalist order that is resolutely opposed to the original project of the internet. The author retraces the process of commodification that resulted in financial rationales taking over from collective and individual emancipation and uncovers how this internet oligopoly uses its exorbitant market power to eliminate competition; take advantage of global financialization to exploit human labour on a global scale and to avoid taxation; and how it implements strategies to control our communication methods for accessing information and content online, thus increasingly controlling the digital public sphere. The book reveals how the reshaping of society via private company business models impact on the place of work in future societies, social and economic inequalities, and, ultimately, democracy.
Author(s): Nikos Smyrnaios
Series: Digital Activism and Society: Politics, Economy and Culture in Network Communication
Publisher: Emerald Publishing
Year: 2018
Language: English
Pages: 191
Tags: Digital Activism, Society, Politics, Economy And Culture, Network Communications
Front Cover......Page 1
Internet Oligopoly: The Corporate Takeover of Our Digital World......Page 4
Copyright Page......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
About the Author......Page 10
Foreword......Page 12
Notes......Page 16
Introduction......Page 18
The Internet as a Political Issue......Page 20
The Necessary Critique of the Digital Political Economy......Page 23
Notes......Page 28
Chapter 1 The Commodification of the Internet......Page 32
A Progressive Project......Page 33
Convergence of Design and Use......Page 34
ARPANET – A Public Good......Page 35
Free Circulation of Information......Page 36
The Information Society and the Post-industrial Economy......Page 37
The Convergence of Neoliberalism and Technological Determinism......Page 38
Technology to Overcome the Critiques of Capitalism......Page 39
The Deregulation of Telecom and the Neoliberal Turn......Page 40
The Pioneers: Thatcher and Reagan......Page 41
European Dogma......Page 42
From Counterculture to the Commodification of Cyberculture......Page 43
A New Audience for the Networked, Personal Computer......Page 44
The WELL, the First Digital Social Network......Page 45
A Platform for Freelance Knowledge Workers......Page 47
The Digerati, Heralds of the Market......Page 48
Notes......Page 49
Information Highways Leading to Internet Privatisation......Page 54
From Keynesian Stimulus to Deregulation......Page 55
The Limits of Closed Networks......Page 56
Internet Privatisation: An Issue that was Never Questioned......Page 57
Internet Start-up Culture Meets Venture Capital......Page 58
The Birth of Silicon Valley......Page 59
How to Finance Innovative Companies......Page 60
From Advising to Speculating......Page 61
Start-ups: Experiments in Deregulated Labour......Page 62
The ‘Irrational Exuberance’ of the New Economy and of Convergence......Page 63
The Emergence of the ‘New Economy’......Page 64
From Convergence to Concentration......Page 65
Failed Mergers with Big Impact......Page 66
Notes......Page 67
The Internet’s Effect on the Information Economy......Page 72
Non-rivalry of Digital Goods......Page 73
Distribution Advantages......Page 75
Reducing Transaction Costs......Page 76
Winner-take-all Economics......Page 78
Regulators Avoid Challenging the Oligopoly......Page 80
Exceptional Financial Power......Page 82
Globalised Companies and Strategies......Page 84
Matrix Management......Page 85
Avoiding Taxes......Page 86
Exploiting Labour: a Pillar of the Oligopoly’s Profitability......Page 88
Subcontracting Content Moderators......Page 89
Flexibility, Precariousness and Wage-fixing......Page 90
Notes......Page 92
Chapter 4 The Oligopoly’s Strategies for Integration and Infomediation......Page 100
Infomediation: A key function of the internet......Page 101
Information Brokerage and Coopetition......Page 104
Google and Facebook: Emblematic Infomediaries......Page 106
The Vertical Integration of the Oligopoly......Page 107
Computers and Consumer Electronics......Page 108
The Cloud......Page 110
Networks......Page 111
The Horizontal Concentration of the Internet......Page 113
Communication and Networking Services......Page 114
Access to Information and Online Content......Page 115
Paid Downloads and Streaming......Page 116
Notes......Page 117
Chapter 5 The Advertising Dominance of the Internet......Page 124
The Critique of Advertising......Page 125
A Two-Sided Market......Page 126
The Audience as a Product......Page 128
Advertising Heteronomy......Page 129
Mass Culture and Advertising......Page 130
The Critique of Advertising Discounted......Page 131
Advertising on the Internet......Page 133
The Internet’s ‘Original Sin’......Page 134
Advertising 2.0......Page 135
Tracking Methods: Beyond Cookies......Page 136
The Personal Data Market......Page 138
Programmatic Trading......Page 139
Google Advertising......Page 140
Facebook Advertising......Page 143
Resisting and Regulating Online Advertising (or lack thereof)......Page 146
Personal Data: A Political Issue......Page 147
The Impossibility of Democratic Regulation......Page 148
Market Regulation......Page 150
The Blind Spots of the Online Advertising Market......Page 151
Notes......Page 153
Conclusion......Page 162
Notes......Page 165
References......Page 166
Index......Page 182
