How should we understand this success? Apple’s “miracle” is typically credited to its design and marketing genius. Consumers’ eagerness to have “what I want, when, where, and how I want it” is taken as evidence of the demand for “convenience” and sometimes even written off as narcissism or petulance. In my view, these explanations pale against the unprecedented magnitude of Apple’s accomplishments. We have contented ourselves for too long with superficial explanations of Apple’s unprecedented fusion of capitalism and the digital rather than digging deeper into the historical forces that summoned this new form to life.

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Cap…, loc. 94