The hidden economic and environmental costs of user monetization processes
This talk will shed light on the often unacknowledged but aggressive exploitation of online users, embedded at the core of the so-called internet companies’ business strategies. Such strategies rely on apparently neutral, personalized user experiences afforded by attractive interfaces. These interfaces obfuscate sophisticated business models embedded in endless pages of indecipherable code, all of which are activated by user labor. In turn, these strategies have a significant energy cost, part of which is involuntarily assumed by the user. To put it bluntly, the user is not just exploited by means of their free labor but is also forced to assume the energy costs of such exploitation.