What actually is the meaning of the word ‘content?’ Why is it so difficult for us to switch social media? Is AI intelligent, and what are the implications of people being turned into content farms for this burgeoning new industry?
While these topics may seem disparate, I promise they all blend together rather seamlessly. Each one leads to the other. The general line of thought that I’ve seen connecting each one of these readings is the idea that content is king. The more content available, the better things go for companies and industries.
First, it might be better to explain what exactly content is and what it entails. As Eichhorn questions in the first chapter of her book, “why and how nearly everything that circulates digitally came to be known as content?” It might seem to be an easy explanation; after all, you’re reading content right now! I’m making content. This website is content. On your phone is content made by content creators, and any video you’ve seen today counts as well. Everything is content, which is why explaining what it is is actually quite difficult.
To me, it’s easier to define it is by what it isn’t. Content isn’t physical. A book is not content unless it is online. To me, this implies something very specific about what content is; it is a unique internet phenomena. As Eicchorn says, content is defined by how it circulates around, and people can make quite the buck off of it no matter how useful or useless it actually is. It’s made me think that the currency of the internet is content. The more people who see it, the greater the earning potential is.
So, what happens when people become the content? Doctorow’s writings focused on how Facebook makes things artificially difficult to leave the website by increasing switching costs, and that the larger a social media is, the more useful and lucrative it is. The greater a resource it becomes. Doctorow stated that “Facebook’s customers aren’t the users…but the advertisers who pay to reach those users.” You become the product by being on there, you and all of your pictures, videos, and comments. This idea can be extended out to any social media.
Now, traditionally, your eyes were the product. The internet is good at being an advertising machine. But now? Now, due to the amount of stuff on social media, the ubiquity of it, the databases are the gold mine. Crawford talked about this, especially regarding how, “Those responsible for assembling datasets presumed that the contents of the internet were theirs for the taking.” Remember last week? I talked a bit about how the remixing of the internet was taken as a given. If it was on the internet, it’s fair game. It’s the same, but now some people are getting paid for your work, your pictures, your words. And none of that money is going to you, if you even get told people are being paid for it.
What can I say? I think it’s rather unfair and dystopian.
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3 responses to “The Product King of the Internet”
[…] The Product King of the Internet […]
The idea that people have essentially become content themselves—traded and profited from without their consent—does indeed evoke a dystopian reality. I also found Eichhorn’s framing of content as a distinctly digital phenomenon intriguing. It raises an important question: Does the shift from physical to digital inherently devalue the original meaning of content, or does it simply create a new framework where everything, even our own presence online, becomes a product?
As you noted, the commodification of data, whether it’s a picture or a personal comment, has become a goldmine for companies, further alienating users from the profits generated by their participation. The implications are vast, and as Crawford suggests, we’re witnessing the formation of an economy built on the extraction and exploitation of data, often at the expense of individuals. It does feel dystopian, but I’m curious: What role do you think individuals can play in pushing back against this system, or is it too far ingrained in the way the internet functions now?
Ok I love that you started with I bunch of questions because I immediately started imagining I was listening to a podcast and it made the reading really fun. I really like the way you defined content. I think it’s a really simple explanation of everything that Eiccheron was trying to get across. I also think you did a really great job of showing how the two reading fit together. I also like the connection you drew between the concept of remixing that we talked about even before this weeks readings. It wasn’t a connection I had thought of before reading your post but now that I’ve read it, it actually makes a lot of sense.