This sector currently includes the manufacturers of the digital devices through which people connect. By this we mean not just well-known media brands such as Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung but also the less-well-known manufacturers of “smart” (that is, internet-connected) fridges, heating systems, and cars through which we never imagined we would communicate. Still less did we imagine that, in the quickly expanding Internet of Things, such devices would communicate with other devices about us. The sector also includes the builders of the computer-based environments, platforms, and tools that enable us to connect with and use the online world, including household names such as Alibaba, Baidu, Facebook, Google, and WeChat. There is also the growing field of data brokers and data processing organizations such as Acxiom, Equifax, Palantir, and TalkingData (in China) that collect, aggregate, analyze, repackage, and sell data of all sorts while also supporting other organizations in their uses of data. And, finally, the social quantification sector includes the vast domain of organizations that increasingly depend for their basic functions on processing data from social life, whether to customize their services (like Netflix and Spotify) or to link sellers and buyers (like Airbnb, Uber, and Didi).

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 36