As discussed in the previous chapter, data colonialism is what happens when human life becomes an input for capitalism. That human life should acquire this particular status under a capitalist system is not strange or new. After all, capitalism seeks to commodify everything, so everything potentially becomes its input. But how “everything” is defined at a specific historical moment is what requires attention. What is unique about our historical moment, we argue, is that human life as organized through data relations becomes the direct input of capitalism, a condition that we describe as specifically and newly colonial.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 160