Turns out your commodified soul really ain't worth all that much

More people should be reading Morozov these days.

Lanier proposes a system of ubiquitous surveillance, with cameras, databases and all. Since we can’t get any privacy, we might at least get paid. “Commercial rights,” he notes, “are better suited for the multitude of quirky little situations that will come up in real life than new kinds of civil rights along the lines of digital privacy.”

Following Lanier’s logic, any correction in the market system — say, price adjustments based on changing demand — would require that extra profits be transferred to consumers. But should you expect a supermarket to send you a check simply because you chose to buy one brand of milk over another? Probably not. Why treat Amazon differently?

To some, the very idea that our every decision is a piece of data to be monetized might seem appalling — and rightly so. What exactly is “humanistic” about Lanier’s vision? Its chief hero seems to be, to borrow a phrase from philosopher Michel Foucault, an “entrepreneur of the self,” always eager to cash in on some personal trivia.