Surveillance Capital

Nice essay on the subject of surveillance capitalism tracing its roots to Pokemon Go.

A convergence of behavioural surplus, data science, material infrastructure, computational power, algorithmic systems and automated platforms produced unprecedented relevance and billions of auctions. Click-through rates skyrocketed. Work on AdWords and AdSense became just as important as work on Search. With click-through rates as the measure of relevance, behavioural surplus was institutionalised into a new kind of commerce that depended upon online surveillance at scale.

The use of telemetrics to adjust auto insurance rates in real-time is one of the examples of such economy the author cites. That reminds me of a recent conversation I had with my friend B. He turns on the telemetry app for one segment of his drive everyday and turns it off for everything else. He aims to get the system confused but still collect his minimally guaranteed discount for using the app. B is gleeful about how the measurements in his case make no sense, contribute no learning data and yet he benefits. Folks like B, will always find creative ways to disrupt the system and make a few bucks along the way. The more we have of this type the less effective the overall system will be.