Although it is still possible to imagine automated behavioral modification without surveillance capitalism, it is not possible to imagine surveillance capitalism without the marriage of behavior modification and the technological means to automate its application. This marriage is essential to economies of action. For example, one can imagine a fitness tracker, a car, or a refrigerator whose data and operational controls are accessible exclusively to their owners for the purposes of helping them to exercise more often, drive safely, and eat healthily. But as we have already seen in so many domains, the rise of surveillance capitalism has obliterated the idea of the simple feedback loop characteristic of the behavioral value reinvestment cycle. In the end, it’s not the devices; it’s Max Weber’s “economic orientation,” now determined by surveillance capitalism.

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Cap…, loc. 928