Datafication

If oil was the commodity of the 20th C, data is the commodity of the 21st C. Datafication describes the translation of activity into information, and the marketization of said information. Data extraction has now emerged as a powerful business model, operating as the backbone of Platform Capitalism. Platforms provide intermediary infrastructures for interaction between user groups, inciting activity and data input.[1] Far from being immaterial or fully automated, data requires material recording and sensors to capture it, server facilities to store it (with massive energy expenditures for cooling), and laborious formatting for it to be usable.

• From the Cosmos to the Commons Between Stars and Signals