Digital Labour and Platform Capitalism
You believe you are simply passing time.
Scrolling, liking, sharing and posting fragments of your life into the endless stream.
But I would ask you to look again.
Every click, every pause, every interaction produces value. Not for you, but for the platform. Your attention is measured, packaged, surveilled and sold. Your behavior becomes data. Your data becomes profit.
This is labor that does not appear as labor. It feels voluntary, even enjoyable. That is precisely its genius. The worker does not feel like a worker, yet continues to produce.
Then there are the influencers.
They sell lifestyles, identities, aspirations. But what they truly sustain is the system itself. They transform life into content, and content into commodity. Even personality becomes something to be marketed.
What you are witnessing is not a new world beyond capitalism.
It is capitalism perfected.
Nothing is left outside the market. Not your time, not your relationships, not even your sense of self.
You scroll. You like. You create data.
And in doing so, you work.