The cycle emulates the logic of the iPod; it worked beautifully at Google but with one critical difference: the absence of a sustainable market transaction. In the case of the iPod, the cycle was triggered by the purchase of a high-margin physical product. Subsequent reciprocities improved the iPod product and led to increased sales. Customers were the subjects of the commercial process, which promised alignment with their “what I want, when I want, where I want” demands. At Google, the cycle was similarly oriented toward the individual as its subject, but without a physical product to sell, it floated outside the marketplace, an interaction with “users” rather than a market transaction with customers.

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Cap…, loc. 215