Clichés, valuations and ownership
Revenues are what?
There are lots of awful clichès that float about on entrepreneurial TV shows like The Apprentice and Dragon's Den. One of those clichés, “revenues are vanity, profit is sanity”, came to mind with the news that Uber was seeking a valuation of $91.5bn in its flotation. This vacation arrives despite Uber never having reported an annual profit.
When the old clichés no longer quite ring true, it potentially underlines some of the changes that are occurring. In this case, these tech based forms of capitalism aren’t as anchored to solid things like profit as their predecessors. Like a number of other big tech companies, Uber seems centrally to provide only a brand, some tech infrastructure for users to populate, market share management and some marketing. What really matters is the future. These tech companies are very good at building an impression of profits that are yet to come - in fact, this seems to be where they are at their most powerful. A significant part of what they do is imagine and attempt to engineer particular futures. The data to be utilised and the impression of the capability to handle the future market are central to the price achieved in the present. The question then, as more tech companies join the floatations - with Slack and Pinterest amongst others coming soon - is what happens if all those imagined futures never materialise. There seems to be a heightened fragility in these markets with a lot of uncertainty built in.
Here is a report on the Uber valuation.
That's valuation, but what about ownership?
Valuations are one thing, but is it the question of ownership that are being revitalised. Matthew Lawrence has launched an interesting new initiative that will look at the future of ownership. The project looks well beyond simple notions of the ownership of the means of production. Indeed, the new Common Wealth think tank is dealing with a number of ways in which ownership needs to be challenged and reshaped. The project is already moving rapidly with some pieces published already and an excellent new website with short films and a clear manifesto for the work they will be doing. Common Wealth is already looking like it will provide some thoughtful and provocative interventions (building on Matthew’s previous work at the IPPR).
In this piece for Tribune magazine, Matthew argues that some radical changes in property relations are needed. There is no point, he argues, in seeking change with a ‘smallness of ambition’. The shift toward a different political economy seems likely to need significant and telling action, and this piece makes that case. The way that ownership can be used to facilitate democracy and sustainability is centre stage in the first set of materials published by the think tank.
There is also a long-read piece on the Common Wealth website on the future of ownership, that piece lays out the agenda and challenges in some detail. It also makes the case for a radical expansion of ownership rights. This piece raises some interesting points about the digital commons and data ownership - I hope to be able to write something responding to that particular part of the agenda being set out by Common Wealth at some point.
Keep it moderate…
The Digital Sociology podcast is always worth following. I’ve posted links to it before on here. The new episode is a fascinating discussion about content moderators and other bits of media theory with Elinor Carmi - who is doing some cutting edge work in these areas.
Improvisation…
This piece about the comedian and actor Tony Slattery is very good. It reminds me of watching Whose Line is it Anyway? on Friday evenings. I was always pleased when Slattery was on.
More on AI ethics…
The discussion around the ethics of artificial intelligence continue to rumble on. Here is a piece from Daniel Susser that continues the debate. These seem like issues that are going to be worth following as the AI race continues.
Ethics washing…
On the topic of tech ethics, Rob Kitchin has an interesting piece in RTE looking at the ethics of the smart city. The piece focuses in particular on the ‘ethics washing’ that goes on around these tech. As Rob explains in his article:
‘With ethics-washing, a performative ethics is being practised designed to give the impression that an issue is being taken seriously and meaningful action is occurring, when the real ambition is to avoid formal regulation and legal mechanisms.’
So the focus on ethics can sometimes be used to launder the techniques being used and to circumvent ethical action. An important observation with significant connotations for how ethics are discussed and practiced in the tech sector and in the implementation of various types of thinking, smart or learning technologies.
Anti-fans
Penny Andrews has been engaged recently in writing a series of lively and insightful pieces for a range of different outlets. Her most recent piece, published in the LARB, is an examination of ‘anti-fans’ in politics. The piece exams the way political discourse plays out in social media, with some big observations about what this means for political possibilities and futures.
Data Gazing…
My book The Data Gaze has been reviewed for Information, Communication & Society.
A couple of things on the future of this newsletter…
Substack, which is the platform I use for this newsletter, have recently added a podcast feature. So I might experiment with adding some audio in future. I've tested the sample version and it is very easy for readers to click and listen. I'll see if I can find a way to make it work and also try to think of something I might say.
One other thing. I'm hoping to start a new writing project soon. The plan is to spend about 2-3 years working on it. I'll explain a bit more about that project once I get started. I'm expecting to include occasional progress updates as I work on it, plus the themes I'll be working on will crop up quite a bit in future newsletters.
Dave Beer
The Data Gaze is availabe in paperback and ebook. Georg Simmel's Concluding Thoughts has just been published in harback.