Instead of the appropriation of cheap natural resources and cheap labor, the new colonialism is premised on the “natural” availability of “cheap” social data. As corporations engage in new forms of exploration, expansion, exploitation, and extermination, a new capitalist mode of production emerges (just as industrial capitalism emerged during the colonial era to replace earlier tributary modes of production).

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 579