Gradually, as surveillance capitalism’s imperatives and the material infrastructures that perform extraction-and-execution operations begin to function as a coherent whole, they produce a twenty-first-century “means of behavioral modification.” The aim of this undertaking is not to impose behavioral norms, such as conformity or obedience, but rather to produce behavior that reliably, definitively, and certainly leads to desired commercial results. The research director of Gartner, the well-respected business advisory and research firm, makes the point unambiguously when he observes that mastery of the “internet of things” will serve as “a key enabler in the transformation of business models from ‘guaranteed levels of performance’ to ‘guaranteed outcomes.’”

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Cap…, loc. 629