Is It a Form of Rentier Capitalism?

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The way that these kind of digial platforms operate, is more akin to a form of rentier capitalism. So when you buy the smart frige, the smart toaster, now, any kind of car, an automobile, what you're buying is the metal, but you're renting soft ware,. That's what gives it its smarts, but that's also what's necessary for its operation. And so the manufacture, then, the platform, retains a huge, amassive amount of control over this thing that you thought you bought.

Paris Marx is joined by Jathan Sadowski to discuss the politics of smart technology, how it enables powerful actors to further control the population, and why we should be more comfortable dismantling technologies that don’t serve the public good.

Jathan Sadowski is the author of “Too Smart: How Digital Capitalism is Extracting Data, Controlling Our Lives, and Taking Over the World” and a Research Fellow in the Emerging Technologies Research Lab at Monash University. He recently wrote about how smart tech is a means for corporate control and the need to dismantle urban surveillance systems. Follow Jathan on Twitter as @jathansadowski.

Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter.

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