Finally, when considering the size and composition of the social quantification sector, we should also consider its economic impact. In terms of actual revenue, it is important not to overestimate the size of the social quantification sector in the wider economy. Oil and gas, financial services, automotive, and pharmaceuticals are in fact larger sectors than ICT. For instance, in 2016, oil conglomerate Saudi Aramco made $311 billion dollars in revenue, compared to Amazon’s $107 billion; Toyota made $237 billion compared to Google’s $89.5 billion; Apple posted a revenue of $234 billion, less than Walmart’s $482 billion; and Facebook’s $27.64 billion and Uber’s $6.5 billion of revenue are considerably less than Volkswagen’s $237 billion. But it is equally important not to underestimate the prominence of the ICT sector in terms of stock market capitalization and not to underrate the considerable growth in this sector: in the first quarter of 2008, the top four corporations in terms of market capitalization (the value of the shares of a corporation) were Exxon/Mobil ($452 billion), Petro China ($423 billion), General Electric ($369 billion), and Gazprom ($299 billion). A decade later, in the first quarter of 2018, they were Apple ($851 billion), Alphabet/Google ($717 billion), Microsoft ($702 billion), and Amazon ($700 billion). In that same year, Apple broke the $1 trillion record in capitalization for a brief period.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 205