Platform capitalism denotes not simply a transition from one period to another but the overlapping of adjacent techniques of capital accumulation, involving the model of data extraction that brings communicational chaos and the model of curation called upon to restore order. In the next part of this book, I discuss in more detail curating in platform capitalism focusing on the particularities of three cases of curated worlds, namely high fashion, cooking, and life-coaching.
Notes
1 www.facebook.com/watch/?v=817592485885026
2 The distinction between these platform types is fluid, and there is a constant dynamic driving them toward integration. For example, infrastructural platforms seek ways to broaden their scope through sectoral connections, whereas sectoral platforms often rely on infrastructural platforms for several operations, including online visibility.
3 Van Dijck et al. further say that this ecosystem, “looks egalitarian yet is hierarchical; it is almost entirely corporate, but it appears to serve public value; it seems neutral and agnostic, but its architecture carries a particular set of ideological values; its efects appear local, while its scope and impact are global; it appears to replace ‘top-down’ ‘big government’ with ‘bottom-up’ ‘customer empowerment’, yet it is doing so by means of a highly centralized structure which remains opaque to its users” (2018: 12). Nick Srnicek (2017) makes another useful categorization of five diferent platform types, including advertising platforms (Facebook,
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Homo Curatorius