WORK IN THE AGE OF DATA

BBVA OPENMIND DATA, IDEAS, AND PROPOSALS ON DIGITAL ECONOMY AND THE WORLD OF WORK BBVAOPENMIND.COM Work in the Age of Data 2 The Increasing Importance of Working Consumers: The Impact on Paid Workers by George Ritzer 3

The world of work and labor is being trans- formed in many different ways and by an array of well-known and well-document- ed forces (e.g., automation, globalization). One force that has been largely invisible and little discussed is the role played in that transformation by the increasingly omnipresent “working consumer” (Du- jarier, 2016; Rieder and Voss, 2010). While The Increasing consumers have always worked, a series of relatively recent changes (especially new self-service technologies; the explo- Importance of Working sion of consumption on the Internet) has served to increase the importance of the working consumer. This has even led to Consumers: The Impact concern about the “overworked consumer” (Andrews, 2019). In many cases, the con- sumer has little choice other than to work on Paid Workers in order to consume. As a result, workers (“consuming producers”) have become less significant in those contexts in which work- ing consumers have been of growing im- George Ritzer portance. In many cases workers have lost their jobs because of the increasing array of tasks undertaken by working consumers. The basic argument to be made here is that the increasing amount of work being done not by workers but rather by consumers is a largely invisible aspect of the “work revolution.” Such consumers offer many advantages over workers, not the least of which is that they often work for little or nothing. There are a series of senses in which consumers work. For example, they work psychologically and emotionally to pro- duce awareness of, and desire for, various products (for example, a meal at a cafeteria; a Big Mac at McDonald’s; one of Amazon. com’s innumerable products) long before they ever enter the physical or digital set- ting in which they are able to consume them. Once the desire is created, working consumers then need to produce the ac- tions required to get to the brick-and-mor- Prosumers, especially the sub-type of working tar locations (or the Web sites) where the consumers, are of increasing importance in products are available for sale. Once there, various ways, including in their impact on paid the initial desire needs to be reproduced (or employees. Working consumers are doing work possibly altered) and translated into the traditionally done by those employees. They steps needed to actually obtain and pur- offer many advantages over paid employees, chase goods and services. In many cases, such as requiring little or no pay and benefits. especially on the Internet, consumers do While the increasing role of working consumers not consider what they are doing as work (e.g., Googling a product or service of inter- leads to the creation of many new jobs (e.g., in est), or, even if they do, they do not consid- Amazon.com’s warehouses), they constitute a er it odious and may even regard it as fun. bigger but little recognized threat to many paid The immaterial psychological work employees. done by consumers is abundantly obvi- Work in the Age of Data 4

Working consumption is a ous in many contexts, especially in media sites mentioned above), but especially in sub-type of the more general events of all sorts. At one time there was online digital sites (most notably, Amazon. process of “prosumption,” or a tendency to see audiences as passive com, Facebook, and Google). The fusion of the fusion of production and consumers of the content being produced production and consumption as well as of consumption and promulgated by the media. However, the digital and the material is even more that view has long been rejected and re- the case in augmented settings involving Beyond the threat posed by placed by a view of the audience as, in the both the digital and material. One exam- human working consumers, terms of this analysis, actively working to ple is the way in which Amazon supple- produce (define, interpret, etc.) content ments its powerful presence online with there is also job loss due as they consume it. The same point can be its bricks-and-mortar settings, such as its to the proliferation of new made about brands. Brand meanings are chain of Whole Foods supermarkets and its technologies that produce as not simply produced by marketers and ad- convenience stores. they consume, and consume vertisers; they are actively produced by the While there has been some scholarly as they produce very people who consume them. use of the term working consumer, more However, from the point of view of this attention has been devoted to prosumption discussion, the most important kinds of and the prosumer. These terms are virtual- work undertaken by working consumers ly unknown in the popular literature, but is the increasing number of instances in many scholars have been using them, as which they must now do work that in the well many others that overlap with them, past was done for them by paid employees. for years. Further, many other scholars Working consumers “labor” in such bricks- have dealt with the process in the past and-mortar settings as supermarkets, de- without labeling it prosumption or using partment stores, IKEA, and in fast-food similar terms. In fact, the phenomenon it- restaurants. In the latter, for example, they self is not only not new, it is arguably pri- serve as waiters, buspersons, and, in the mordial; it is undoubtedly more primordial case of food obtained at the drive-through than either production or consumption. window, as garbagepersons taking their For example, hunter-gatherers were pro- debris with them and then disposing of it. sumers who often both produced their own They also do work online, such as searching food and then consumed it; they may even for information, products or services that, have consumed it as they were producing to the degree there were parallels to this it. People were prosumers before they were work in the pre-Internet world, was done thought of, and thought of themselves, as for them by paid employees. However, the either producers or consumers. That dis- vast majority of work done by consumers tinction probably gained traction with the online is increasingly unconscious and Industrial Revolution as large numbers done for them by systems of which they of people left home (or farm) to work in are largely unaware. For example, a click settings (workshops, factories) devoted to on something of interest online might au- production. The more recent Consumer tomatically prompt the appearance of a rel- Revolution (Cohen, 2003) brought with evant online site on one’s screen. Similarly, it a sense of people as consumers and the wearable technology (a major facilitator of development and proliferation of distinct working consumption, although the tech- sites where people went to consume. nology does much or all of the work) can As a result, scholars and laypeople have lead to an array of prompts, not the least long made, and continue to make, a histor- important of which are those from com- ical error—the tendency in analyzing the mercial interests. In addition, and more economy to focus on either production or problematic, is that it might lead to the use consumption, or worker or consumer—that of information about users’ actions that are is in desperate need of correction. Concern invisible to them and often designed to lead with prosumers in general and working them to consume. consumers in particular serves to correct Working consumption is a sub-type of that error. the more general process of prosumption, While we have always been prosumers or the fusion of production and consump- and, more specifically, working consumers, tion (Ritzer and Jurgenson, 2010; Ritzer, today’s increasing fusion of work (produc- 2014). Prosumption has always existed, but tion) and consumption is abundantly obvi- it is taking many new forms in the contem- ous to the casual observer and to scholars porary world. This is true in both bricks- in various fields who have created, and and-mortar settings (e.g., the consumption expanded upon, concepts that reflect this The Increasing Importance of Working Consumers: The Impact on Paid Workers by George Ritzer 5

reality. Beyond the concept of “prosumer,” (e.g., locate what they are seeking among a tected products they want to purchase, and others in an array of fields that deal with vast array of products, scan tags to check leave the store. (Uber has done much the the same, or closely related, phenomena prices or to find missing prices, in some same thing; since rides are prepaid through are “produser” (Bruns, 2008), “co-creation” cases scan purchases when they leave via an app, passengers can exit an Uber with- (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004), market- a self-service lane). Supermarkets still have out the need to pay or to tip.) Consumers ing’s “service-dominant logic” (Vargo and many employees, but they are often sup- must pick up desired items on their own Lusch, 2004), “wikinomics” (based at least plemented by self-service checkout lanes without the help of employees and they are in part on the idea that businesses put con- where customers are required to scan their able to leave the store without pausing at sumers to work on the Internet) (Tapscott own purchases, including, at times, even the checkout station or with the involve- and Williams, 2008), “craft consumption” weighing their own produce and bagging ment of those who traditionally work at (Campbell, 2005), DIY (Fox, 2014), and, their purchases. Gone are the days when those stations in conventional shops. Pur- most importantly for our purposes here, there were employees available to pump chases are scanned while still in the bag the “working consumer” (or customer). gasoline in service stations. Customers by sophisticated scanners rather than by While all of these ideas and others (e.g., now not only pump (produce) their own employees. Amazon Go’s “Just Walk Out the consumer as manager of workers on gasoline, but they are likely to pay for it by Technology” is connected to the Internet such sites as Yelp) overlap and each has scanning their credit cards. Customers also and employs computer vision, sensors, and its strengths, it is the idea of the prosumer increasingly check themselves in at hotels deep learning. All of this serves to make that has been most influential in the social and airports. They are more and more like- shopping at Amazon Go far more efficient sciences and in my work. ly to be on their own to find their cars in than it is in traditional brick-and-mor- Contemporary interest in, and usage of, car rental lots, to wash their own cars at tar convenience stores or supermarkets; the prosumer concept is traceable to Alvin automated car washes, and to check their consumers do it all with the assistance of Toffler’s (1980) thinking on the “rise of the selections out of libraries. IKEA’s custom- advanced technologies, but with little or prosumer,” as well his prescient later work ers must not only trek through seemingly no help from employees. Other shops and with Heidi Toffler (2006) on the “coming endless mazes largely on their own in an malls are likely to follow this model by, for prosumer explosion.” However, that work effort to find what they are looking for (and example, recognizing customers and their was only part of the Tofflers’ broader think- likely discovering and selecting other prod- preferences as soon as they enter and lead- ing on social change, especially the “third ucts in the course of their rambles through ing them to likely sites and products. wave.” While that idea got a great deal of the store), but, in at least some cases, they Amazon is likely to increasingly inte- attention for a time, it was more of popular must put together at home products pur- grate its Amazon Go convenience stores, interest than one that attracted the inter- chased in the store (e.g. bookcases). its Whole Foods’ supermarkets, as well as est of scholars and that found its way into Perhaps the epitome, at least thus far, in its brick-and-mortar bookstores into its far the academic literature. Although Toffler’s the use of the working consumer in bricks- more important digital business. It might, work on prosumption was lost sight of by and-mortar settings is to be found in Ama- for example, use such stores as distribution most scholars (including myself), I began zon Go’s convenience stores (ten had been centers for digitally ordered products or as writing about what was, in effect, that idea opened by early 2019 and as many as 2000 launch pads for its nascent drone-delivery and phenomenon in my study of McDon- are planned). Amazon Go’s stores are in the system. In fact, Amazon is expanding in so ald’s and its broader influence through forefront of efforts by bricks-and-mortar many different directions and augment- the “McDonaldization of Society” (Ritzer, shops and malls to compete better with on- ing its online business in so many different 1983; 1993). One of the many things that line sites (and to augment Amazon.com) by, ways that it has raised the fear of the emer- interested me about McDonald’s was the among other things, further increasing the gence (it may already exist) of a modern way in which it (as well as its emulators, use of working consumers and reducing the monopoly similar to the nineteenth-cen- extenders, and some predecessors [e.g. number and availability of paid employees. tury railroads that led, in their day, to the cafeterias]) put its customers to work in As a result, customers are forced to perform development of anti-monopoly laws. its bricks-and-mortar restaurants. For work traditionally done by such employ- We are clearly in the early stages of the example, customers in those restaurants ees. This is made possible by, among other development of augmented businesses were (and are) required to “produce” their things, Amazon Go’s “grab-and-go” sys- involving ever-tighter integration of the own meal by doing work that was former- tem which allows consumers to enter the digital and the material and the degree ly done by paid employees (and still is in brick-and-mortar shop and, on their own, to which they augment one another. In higher-end restaurants). Thus, the line be- to quickly and easily make their selections addition to the use of drones, other ad- tween consumer and worker is blurred, at (groceries, ready-to-eat meals, meal kits, vances being considered are shops staffed least in part, in fast-food restaurants. among other products). Because of the ex- by robots that employ facial-recognition This is also the case in many other tensive use of digital technology in Amazon software, as well as the use of 3D printing bricks-and-mortar settings. At one time, Go shops, it is not necessary for custom- (additive manufacturing). the traditional department store had lots ers to wait in line in order to pay for their The discussion of these advanced of paid workers doing a wide range of purchases on checkout; Amazon Go offers technologies leads to the point that such tasks for consumers. However, with em- checkout-free shopping. All shoppers need technologies have played a major role in ployees few and far between, consumers do is use the Amazon Go app on entering enabling working consumers and in allow- must now do much of the work themselves the store, select whatever automatically de- ing them to do things (e.g. manufacturing Work in the Age of Data 6

products with 3D printers) that in the past working consumers must do all of the dig- working consumers in unemployment. Be- could only be done by paid employees. ital work involved in ordering the myriad yond the threat posed by human working While the working consumer is impor- other products that are available on the consumers, there is also job loss due to the tant to the existence and further develop- Web site (and innumerable others like it). proliferation of new technologies (“pro- ment of today’s bricks-and-mortar busi- In the case of books, those who buy them, suming machines” [Ritzer, 2015b] such as nesses as well as to those that integrate perhaps on the basis of online reviews additive manufacturing, wearable tech- “bricks-and-clicks,” the most important produced by other working consumers, nologies with built-in sensors, self-driv- and complete contemporary examples of may also produce reviews of other books ing cars) that produce as they consume; the increasing centrality of the working themselves. Increasingly, these working consume as they produce. consumer are to be found on Internet sites, consumers may even author the digital To simply state the basic argument be- most notably Google, Facebook, Amazon. books for sale on Amazon.com. As a result ing made here, those traditionally thought com, as well as more specific sites such as of all of the work being done by its working of as consumers are now doing more and TurboTax and LegalZoom. It is nearly im- consumers, Amazon.com has little or no more of what was once considered work possible to find and deal with human em- need for such paid employees as “clerks” (or production) and they are usually doing ployees on most Internet sites, including and book reviewers (although it employs it without pay (beyond the tasks associ- those that sell goods and services. This is hundreds of thousands of people to, for ated with self-service of all types, there because the work done by humans is com- example, work in distribution centers and are, for example, those who write reviews paratively expensive, prone to errors and to to deliver products to its working consum- for Amazon, Yelp, and many other Web being unreliable. The near-total absence of ers). The increasing power of Amazon.com sites) or for little economic reward (e.g. human employees online is also traceable is forcing many bricks-and-mortar shops, those who do crowdsourced work on, for to the fact that much of the online work is most notably those dealing in books, out example, Amazon’s “Mechanical Turk”). performed by advanced technologies. More of business with a consequent loss of jobs Business owners are coming (conscious- importantly and central to this argument and an increase in unemployment in such ly and unconsciously) to understand the is the fact that online consumers must settings. benefits of using working consumers in do a lot more unpaid work not required While there is no shortage of attempts this way and, in the process, that they are of them in bricks-and-mortar settings. In to understand the causes of unemploy- reducing labor costs and the need for large fact, they usually have no choice but to do ment, one suggested by this discussion is numbers of paid employees in bookshops, such work. For example, on Amazon.com the heretofore unexamined role played by banks, the taxi industry, and libraries, among many others. For their part, many working consumers are embracing their productive activities (such as doing all of the work in ordering books online at Am- azon.com, using ATMs rather than human bank tellers, driving part-time using their own automobiles for ride-sharing com- panies such as Uber and Lyfft). However, working consumers are also being increas- ingly forced into doing such work by, for example, the absence of readily available employees on online sites, of full-service pumps and their attendants at gasoline stations, of supermarket checkout coun- ters staffed by employees, and of jobs in the taxi industry. While not all forms of working consumption contribute substan- tially to unemployment (e.g., writing re- views on Yelp), it is clear that at least some forms do cause unemployment. The news media offer excellent exam- ples of the relationship between techno- logical change, automation, working con- sumers, and unemployment (Rusbridger, 2018). There is no question that technolog-

Pedestrians check their mobile phones near an Amazon Go sign as they wait for the lights to change, Chicago, 2018 The Increasing Importance of Working Consumers: The Impact on Paid Workers by George Ritzer 7

ical change and later automation were di- or no training will be able to produce (rel- Customers order food at a self-ordering kiosk rectly involved in decimating employment atively) high-quality photographs and vid- at a McDonald’s fast food restaurant in Hong in the newspaper industry by, for example, eos. Bloggers and amateur photographers Kong, 2019 eliminating the need for typesetters and, have also contributed to the decline, even more recently, proofreaders. On the other the demise, of many outlets for the work hand, technological advances in the news of journalists and professional photogra- media have made possible the greater con- phers, such as newspapers and magazines. tributions of working consumers who, in With fewer outlets for their work, there are turn, have played a major role in unem- fewer paying jobs for, among others, report- ployment in the newspaper business. For ers and photographers. example, computers and the Internet have In sum, because of the increasing im- made possible the development of online portance of working consumers people are news sites (many people increasingly get losing jobs, are being forced to work part- their news from Facebook and Twitter) as time, are otherwise underemployed, or well as a bewildering number and array of are not getting paid jobs in the first place. blogs. Fewer people read newspapers and Working consumers are doing what was an increasing number get their news from once, or still could be, paid work. Howev- such online sources. These developments, er, they are doing it, and often seemingly among others, are contributing to the de- happily, on an unpaid or poorly paid basis. cline in the need for reporters, among oth- But the advantages of working consumers ers. Fewer reporters are being hired and do not stop at being unpaid or poorly paid. schools of journalism are not training as Such working consumers offer the prof- many reporters, at least in traditional ways it-making organization many other advan- and for traditional jobs. tages in comparison to even poorly paid Much the same could be said of the employees (as well as to traditional custom- Because of the increasing need for professional photographers and ers on whom much needs to be spent on importance of working videographers given the ease with which marketing, advertising, and salespeople in consumers, people are losing “amateurs” (or “pro-ams”) are able to do order to induce them to consume). this work and upload their photos and For example, while profit-making or- their jobs; they are being videos free of charge. This work is made ganizations still have many short- and forced to work part-time or to possible not only by the Internet, but also long-term obligations to paid workers, be otherwise underemployed, by smartphones and digital cameras that there are few, if any, responsibilities to or they are not getting paid make it more likely that those with little working consumers and they are almost jobs in the first place Work in the Age of Data 8

all short term, even immediate. In addi- and both are bound by agreements and deal (of products, profits, and so on) ema- tion to paying a wage, the employer may contracts. Thus working consumers can be nating from very little (in terms of wages), be responsible, although to a decreasing seen as a model for a neoliberal economy. much is now being created out of thin air; degree, for various costly benefit programs While we have discussed its role in job out of nothing (at least in terms of wages). for paid workers, such as health insurance, loss, working consumption also leads to job Further, most working consumers do it retirement programs, and paid vacations. creation. As mentioned above, one of the gladly, even happily, with little of the al- There are no such responsibilities for work- best-known examples involves bloggers, ienation associated with paid workers and ing consumers. who turn their activities into paid work by, no nasty problems such as absenteeism, In addition, paid workers, at least his- for example, finding advertisers for their goldbricking, and going out on strike. torically and to a large degree even today, blogs or by using their success as bloggers The purest example of this contempo- must be provided with the necessary and as a springboard into becoming reporters, rary “magic” is to be found in the abun- often costly “means of production,” such book authors, and so on. dance of “big data” (Radford and Lazer, as places to work (offices, factories), tools More importantly, working consump- forthcoming) provided free of charge, often and machines (assembly lines, computers). tion (and prosumption more generally) unknowingly by users, to the new digital In contrast, some working consumers pay relies on and leads to the creation of mil- giants of capitalism—Google, Facebook for the purchase and upkeep on their own lions of new jobs for paid employees. For and Amazon—and aggressively harvested means of production (offices at home, utili- example, because of the billions of dollars and used by them and many others. Even ty costs associated with those offices, com- spent by its working consumers, Amazon if it was possible to hire marketing firms puters, and automobiles if they drive for a employs about 600,000 paid employees. to gather this enormous and ever-expand- ride-sharing company, etc.). Working con- Then there are the uncountable number ing body of “big data”—and it is not—it sumers also cost less to serve. Fewer paid of workers in various companies involved would cost companies an unfathomable personnel are needed in shopping sites in producing the systems—iPhones, ATMs, amount of money. The data collected in (e.g. department stores) because prosum- self-checkout technologies, Web sites, and this old-fashioned way would be minuscule ers now do much of the work themselves. so on—that make working consumption the in terms of quantity and quality in com- There are even greater savings in terms of norm. It is possible that more jobs are lost parison to that provided free of charge by the increasingly important consumption as a result of working consumption than working consumers. Indeed, Amazon’s top on the Internet (e.g. Amazon.com, eBay, are created by it, but of even greater im- executive, Jeff Bezos, has made it clear that travel sites such as trivago, KAYAK, and portance is the fact that those who gain the the enormous amount of data provided, Expedia) where paid employees are almost new paid jobs are not likely to be the same consciously and unconsciously, by those totally absent, at least as far as users are kinds of people who lose their positions who access, click on, and buy products on concerned, and the unpaid working pro- as a result of the working consumer. For the site are more valuable in the long run sumers do virtually all of the work. Other example, relatively unskilled supermarket to Amazon than the sale of those products. savings are derived from the fact that prod- checkers and bank tellers are not likely to The data can be used to learn more about ucts are either stored by working consum- find their way into the high-tech industries their own consumers, better target them, ers (in the case of much for sale on eBay; that owe their existence, at least in part, to predict their behavior, and sell to them in used books on Amazon.com) or are sold on the increasing centrality of working con- the future. In addition, they can sell that more of a just-in-time than a just-in-case sumption. Those industries often require a data to others. This has helped to make basis (Amazon.com). Amazon.com does not more advanced, or at least a different, skill Amazon an economic powerhouse and warehouse the vast majority of the “long set (although Amazon, among others, also Bezos the richest man in the world. Abun- tail” of books (and other products) it offers employs many relatively unskilled workers dant and free data is even more the source for sale, but rather obtains them as they are such as warehouse workers). of the wealth and power for, among others, ordered, frequently from third-party sellers The poorly concealed secret of classical Google and Facebook. After all, Google and (often, themselves, working consumers). capitalism was—and is—paying workers Facebook sell no conventional products; These advantages and savings are an less, usually far less, than the value of what their main resource is the tracking and irresistible attraction to profit-making or- they produce (Marx, 1867/1967). While that using by them and others in myriad ways ganizations which covet both fewer respon- continues to be the case, an even better of information provided free of charge by sibilities and, most importantly, from the kept secret in today’s economic system their billions of prosumers. point of view of profits, a great reduction is that working consumers are paid little Digital sites lend themselves easily to in costs. or nothing for what they produce. Most the collection of massive amounts of data. It is worth noting that working consum- of the magic of early capitalism was to be These data are provided, usually free of ers fit well with the reigning neoliberal found in the gap between what manufac- charge and often unknowingly, by users philosophy. They are on their own to both turers charged for their products and what and providers. The users provide that data produce and consume. They must make those who actually produced them—the (e.g. preferences for various products) un- their own way in, and negotiate, the maze- workers—were paid (poorly) for their la- knowingly and free of charge every time like structure of the capitalist system. In bor. Capitalism today is a far more magical they click, for example, on a search item contrast, the traditional employee in this economy, at least for profit-making organ- or on products available on Amazon.com. system is provided an array (but declining izations, because most working consumers Facebook users do even more and pro- number) of things by the business owners work for little or nothing. Instead of a great vide even more detailed information on The Increasing Importance of Working Consumers: The Impact on Paid Workers by George Ritzer 9

themselves and their “friends” by writing to be productive and, in so doing, to earn Working consumers fit well on their walls, as well as those of others. a wage that allowed them—and perhaps with the reigning neoliberal Facebook and Google extract and use that their families—to subsist. philosophy. They are on data in various ways, most obviously in tar- At an abstract theoretical level of the their own, to both produce geting users with ads for products related economy in general, Marx saw production and consume. They must to their preferences. They use extracted and consumption of equal importance. make their own way in, and search data to sell targeted ad space to ad- However, the vast majority of Marx’s vertisers. Such data are now the source of work is focused on the specific econom- negotiate, the maze-like almost all Google’s (and Facebook’s) reve- ic form—capitalism—that was of growing structure of the capitalist nue. Remember that virtually all of these importance in the mid-nineteenth century system data come from working consumers who (and is of far greater importance today). are not compensated for their contribu- Marx concentrated almost exclusively on The purest example of this tions. production because early capitalism was contemporary “magic” is to be This is but a small part of what it, and dominated by it; consumption was rath- found in the abundance of big many other entities, are doing in ushering er primitive and of secondary economic data provided by users free of us into the computational culture’s era of importance. To put it another way, it was charge, and often unknowingly, “datafication” (Couldry, forthcoming). The the dynamics of production that were of to the new digital giants of goal is to turn as many things as possible, greatest interest to Marx (and most later even the self through self-tracking devices Marxist and mainstream economists). Nev- capitalism such as Fitbit, into data. ertheless, while capitalism was driven by Amazon’s acquisition of the Whole production, that which was produced in Foods chain of supermarkets reflects the capitalism had to be, at least in the main, growing importance of big data provided, consumed. A capitalist system in general, consciously and unconsciously, by working as well as a specific capitalist enterprise, consumers. Supermarket chains have not which fails to sell what it produces in the been able to create, or to have access to, the market, or at least much of it, will fail. abundance of big data that is available to To put it in more Marxian terms, the “ex- Whole Foods now that it is under the Am- change values” produced by the capitalist azon umbrella. Such data, along with other system of production must be “use values” Amazon’s advantages, could allow Whole that meet consumers’ needs and that pro- Foods to become a much more significant duce a demand for them. player in the supermarket business, much Marx’s “productivist bias” was not in- more powerful than it heretofore has been. herent in his overarching theory. Rather, it Larger and more established supermarket was driven by the realities of the capitalism chains will need to do a better job of ob- of his day. While early capitalism was dom- taining and using such data. Whole Foods inated by production, it is not the case that will also enable Amazon to gather much later forms of capitalism would inevitably more big data on food shopping. It can be dominated by production. then use that not only to enhance Whole Capitalism today continues to be a sys- Foods’ position in the supermarket world, tem that appears to be dominated by pro- but also to improve Amazon’s role in the duction. However, as pointed out above, online sale of food. there was a shift in the US, especially In describing and theorizing about after the end of World War II, away from capitalism in the nineteenth century Karl an economy dominated by production to Marx was clearly dealing with an economic one in which consumption is predominant. system dominated by production (indus- The predominance of consumption has in- try, manufacturing, poorly paid manual creased dramatically in the decades since laborers, etc.). This focus was obvious in the end of World War II. In fact, it is often many places in his work, especially in his contended that seventy percent, or more, definitions of the two key players in the of the US economy in the early twenty-first capitalist system: the capitalist and the century is accounted for by consumption. proletariat. The capitalist was defined The key point from the perspective of this above all by ownership of the means of discussion is that it is possible to think of not production and the proletariat by the ne- only producer capitalism, but also consum- cessity of selling their ability to produce— er capitalism. The US, at least since World their labor (really their labor time)—in War II, is better seen as increasingly charac- order to have access to the means of pro- terized by consumer rather than producer duction. They needed that access in order capitalism. While to Marx, the great source of Work in the Age of Data 10

the “success” of producer capitalism, at least Walmart, Google, Amazon.com) have from the point of view of the capitalist, was learned the lessons of both producer and the ability to exploit the proletariat, it could consumer capitalism and employed the be argued that the (or at least a) great source best of both, at least as far as capitalists of success in consumer capitalism is the and their profits are concerned. To this, ability to exploit the consumer. Of course, they have added more recent advances in production continues to be important, in- prosumer capitalism and those advances deed essential, within consumer capitalism are likely to accelerate in the future. In and the exploitation of the proletariat con- bringing all of the lessons of producer, con- tinues as well. However, in contrast to pro- sumer, and prosumer capitalism together ducer capitalism, consumer capitalism can in one system, the leaders in prosumer cap- be seen as a doubly exploitative economic italism have operationalized, combined, system. In other words, the capitalist earns and enhanced the principles of how best to profits through the exploitation of people exploit prosumers as both producers and in their roles as workers and as consum- consumers, as well as in the integration ers. However, we have moved beyond this of those two forms of exploitation. While double exploitation to synergistic double most of these forms of exploitation were exploitation (Ritzer, 2015a). The exploita- undertaken independently in producer tion of prosumers as producers used to take and consumer capitalism, they are not only place mainly in settings such as factories, adopted together in prosumer capitalism, while that of prosumers as consumers was but they are employed in a synergistic found primarily in, for example, grocery fashion to create unprecedented levels stores or butcher shops. Now, the exploita- of, and possibilities for, exploitation and tion of the prosumer (both as producer and therefore for the profitability of capitalist consumer) is increasingly likely to take place enterprises. in the same setting (in the “social factory”; One way of thinking of the exploitation see below) and at the same time. That is, the of consumers is the process by which they exploitation of the prosumers as producers are induced to go far beyond the consump- and as consumers interpenetrate creating a tion of the basics needed for survival and synergy that results in a higher level of ex- to become hyperconsumers (Ritzer, 2012). ploitation than ever before. They do so by buying and being sold more The focus here on prosumers being syn- goods and services than they “need”; pay- ergistically doubly exploited is in their role ing more, often far more, for them than as consumers because that is where we find the commodities are “worth”; and ideal- the most important changes leading to such ly expanding the pool of money available exploitation. Needless to say, the best exam- for consumption by going into debt (often ples of synergistic double exploitation, at deeply) in order to be able to pay for them. least in the material world, are to be found The preceding discussion is a prelude in the wide array of self-service systems to the argument that while producer and already discussed. In all of these systems consumer capitalism are alive and well, they are being exploited as producers, but a new (based, paradoxically, on the very this is occurring at the same time they are old, if not primal, process of prosumption) being exploited as consumers. Synergis- form of capitalism—“prosumer capital- tic double exploitation is clearest in these ism”—has emerged as arguably at least cases since there is a more or less equal one of the defining forms of capitalism in measure of consumption and production the twenty-first century (among the other to be exploited and the exploitation of both candidates for names for contemporary is occurring more-or-less simultaneously. capitalist systems are “platform,” “digital,” Furthermore, the capacity to exploit con- and “surveillance” capitalism), especially sumption and production has been honed in the US and the developed West. This de- and heightened over the years by earlier velopment has gone unrecognized by most (and continuing) advances in producer and observers as well as by those intimately in- consumer capitalism. Prosumer capitalism volved in the system. Thus, a new “grand is now making its own contributions to this narrative” is evolving: producer capital- by creating, refining, and heightening the ism>consumer capitalism>prosumer cap- ability to exploit prosumers. italism is being suggested here. However, In effect, those corporations that rely all of these capitalist systems coexist today Customer in a self-service area at an IKEA store heavily on self-service (e.g., McDonald’s, and each has elements of the others; all in Cologne, 2007 The Increasing Importance of Working Consumers: The Impact on Paid Workers by George Ritzer 11

involve some combination of production, groceries, airplane tickets, hotel accommo- The best examples of consumption, and prosumption. dations, and the myriad goods and services synergistic double exploitation, Much of this discussion is in accord for sale online. at least in the material world, with the perspectives of the later auton- The counterargument to the idea that are to be found in the wide omist Marxists, especially their thinking working consumers are exploited, if not array of self-service systems on the social factory (Gill and Pratt, 2008). doubly and synergistically exploited, is that That is, from this perspective, much pro- they are rewarded for their “work” not by Working consumers are simply duction is no longer derived from workers, a paycheck, but in the lower prices availa- nor does it take place in the traditional ble to them (or rooted out by them because being rewarded in a different factory or office. Rather, it now occurs in they are “educated consumers”). That is, way than they were in the past. both material and immaterial forms in the working consumers are simply being re- They do the work associated larger society composed, largely, of work- warded in a different way than they were with contemporary forms of ing consumers. While additive manufac- in the past. They do the work associated consumption because they turing came into existence long after the with contemporary forms of consumption believe that they are getting work done by the autonomist Marxists, it mainly because they believe that they are lower prices seems to be the ultimate example (at least getting lower prices and that those savings so far) of the kind of development they are an adequate reward for the work in- were thinking about. Of course, those who volved. This is certainly a possibility and it work in order to consume in self-service would be the argument made by those who settings can also be seen as existing in the own today’s profit-making organizations social factory. increasingly reliant on working consumers. All economic systems, including all cap- However, the strongest and clearest italist systems, are systems of prosumption evidence that working consumers do not involving working consumers. What, then, ordinarily get lower prices is to be found in is so different about the situation today? the cases where self-service systems coex- First, a variety of recent social changes ist with older systems staffed by paid em- have served to create new forms of working ployees providing services to consumers. consumption (as discussed above, especial- Typical is the case of the checkout lanes ly on the Internet) and to give the process in supermarkets and in many other retail even greater importance in the economic businesses. Those who use self-checkout system. Given the exploitation that serves do unpaid work that was (and is) done by to define capitalism, the nature of the ex- paid cashiers on traditional lanes. Howev- ploitation of the working consumer with- er, those working consumers who use the in prosumer capitalism takes center stage. self-checkout lanes pay the same amount This all matters because all of us, and to an for their purchases as those who use tra- increasing degree, are working consumers. ditional lanes and have the work done for As such, as pointed out above, we are be- them by paid employees. More generally, ing doubly and synergistically exploited supermarkets save money (and enhance as producers and consumers. Not only are their profitability) because of that free la- virtually all of us being doubly exploited, bor and the lower labor costs associated but we are to a large degree, if not totally, with the reduced need for paid employees. oblivious to it. However, the full savings (or even part of Examples of double synergistic dou- it) are not directly passed on to the work- ble exploitation are found in self-service ing consumers who are doing the work; gasoline stations, self-operating kiosks in who are providing the free labor. fast-food restaurants, ATMs, self-check- It is possible, however, that all shop- outs at supermarkets, self-check-ins and pers (those who are working consumers -outs at hotels, and especially on online and those who continue to consume in consumption sites such as Amazon.com. the traditional way with the help of paid In all of these systems work that was once employees) get lower prices because of the done by paid employees is now performed free labor done by working consumers. In by working consumers who do many of the that case, working consumers would be same tasks, but they do them largely on an subsidizing more traditional consumers unpaid basis. In doing so, they are being ex- (now “free riders”). If that was the case, ploited as producers, but this is occurring there would be no net gain to the owners at the same time they are being exploited of those supermarkets and no economic as consumers by, for example, over-paying inducement to invest in the new technol- for gasoline, hamburgers, bank services, ogy needed to enable working consumers. Work in the Age of Data 12

How can anything be done about this This lack of alienation is clearest in the In their roles as producers exploitation, especially given the fact that case of today’s working consumers on the and as consumers, prosumers working consumers are unaware of the pro- Internet, especially on social networking are doubly exploited in a cess in and through which the exploitation sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). What exists synergistic fashion that leads occurs? Exploitation is quite clear in the on these sites, their content (writings on to unprecedented levels of traditional case of paid workers. In fact, it Facebook walls, tweets) is created by work- exploitation was even reducible to mathematical for- ing consumers. At the same time, it is those mulae in Marx’s work. Those formulae are same people, or others just like them, who based on the fact that workers produce a consume that content. Virtually all of those It is easy to think of Marx’s great deal, but are only paid for a small involved in these processes and systems workers as alienated, but it part of what they produce. Alternatively, have positive feelings toward them. It is is difficult or impossible to workers labor many hours during the work almost impossible to think of users as al- apply the term—at least in its day, but only a small part of that time is ienated from those sites since they are to a social-psychological sense—to needed to pay their wages; the gains from large extent responsible for the production working consumers the rest of the work day go to the capitalist. and use (consumption) of the content on Some of it is used to pay expenses, but most them. importantly it is the source of the profits In terms of the grand narrative being that are the goal and basis of capitalism. suggested here—producer capitalism>con- As a theory, exploitation obviously has a sumer capitalism>prosumer capitalism—a negative connotation and that is supported key issue is its practical applicability rather by the relative lack of economic success of than merely as an abstract conceptual and workers, their lack of positive feelings to- theoretical point of view. ward their work, and even their alienation First, most people continue to think of from, and rebellion against, it. themselves as either workers or consumers, Exploitation is less clear-cut in the case or workers at one time and in one place and of working consumers; it cannot be reduced consumers at another time and place, but to a simple mathematical formula. It seems few, if any, think of themselves as working clear that unpaid or poorly paid working consumers. How could they when the con- consumers are exploited as workers, but cept as well as others like it (prosumers, less clear-cut is the ways in which they are co-creators) were (and are) known to only exploited as consumers. However, such a a very small number of scholars working multidimensional measure of the exploita- in a number of diverse fields. The fact tion of working consumers is far more diffi- that these ideas exist in diverse fields and cult than it is in the much simpler (but still forms further inhibits not only academic highly complex) case of the paid worker. work on this topic but also the ability of How does one calculate how much work those outside of academia to have a way of working consumers do and how much they conceptualizing and thinking about these should be paid for it? new realities. Nothing else is possible, at Working consumption is also much least practically, unless people are able to more difficult to think of in terms of alien- begin to think of themselves and what they ation. Rather than being characterized by do as working consumers. the frequently negative feelings of work- Secondly, and far more importantly, ers toward production, working consum- this constitutes a new domain that capi- ers are generally highly positive, if not talists are capturing and using to further downright ecstatic, about what they do increase profits. This is not to say that and that which they derive from it (goods capitalists are much more consciously and services). Put another way, it is easy to aware of the working consumer than most think of Marx’s workers as alienated, but others, but for quite some time they have it is difficult or impossible to apply that implicitly understood the basic dynamics term, at least in its social-psychological that undergird the utility of the working sense, to working consumers. (Structural- consumer. Thus, in the early twentieth cen- ly it can be argued that working consumers tury the owners of supermarkets did not are as alienated—separated—from other understand, at least explicitly, that they consumers, the consumption process, the were transforming consumers in grocery products they consume, and their essential stores into working consumers in super- being as are workers from other producers, markets, but that was the consequence of the production process, the products they various changes designed to rationalize produce, as well as their being.) their operations and increase their profits. The Increasing Importance of Working Consumers: The Impact on Paid Workers by George Ritzer 13

Select Bibliography The same kind of thing can be said about the rewards of maintaining and expanding fast-food restaurants in the mid-twentieth control over this system are simply too great —Andrews, Christopher century. More recently, Facebook did not for capitalists to ignore. They will draw on K. 2019. The Overworked Consumer: Self-Checkout, fully understand that it would become a their great resources to dominate this do- Supermarkets, and the nearly hundred-billion-dollar company main and in the process work hard to limit, Do-It-Yourself Economy. largely because of the content and data if not scuttle, efforts to turn it into a more Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. provided by its working consumers. The equal and democratic system oriented to the —Bruns, Axel. 2008. Blogs, same could be said of Amazon. needs and interests of working consumers Wikipedia, Second Life, and As the concept of the working consum- rather than to the profitability of capitalist Beyond: From Production to Produsage. New York: er gains greater visibility and notoriety enterprises. Peter Lang. and reaches the larger public, many more Finally, it should be reiterated that the —Campbell, Colin. capitalists will be drawn in the direction working consumer is a major force in revo- 2005. “The Craft Consumer: Culture, Craft of modifying or creating enterprises that lutionizing work and labor. The consumer is and Consumption in a rely more and more on them. Thus, we are not generally seen as having such a role, let Postmodern Society.” likely to see the spread of this model, as alone a significant one, in the transforma- Journal of Consumer Culture 5: 23–42. well as a growing realization of the fact that tion of work and labor. Such a role is usually —Cohen, Lizabeth, 2003. there are ever-greater profits to be derived accorded to forces internal to what we have A Consumers’ Republic: from it. traditionally thought of as work and labor. The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar For their part, working consumers, at We need to reflect on and study the changes America. New York: Knopf. least in the short run, are not likely to be in paid labor that are traceable to the bur- —Couldry, Nick. nearly as quick to understand that they are geoning role for working consumers. Forthcoming. “Recovering Critique in the Age of working consumers, that they will increas- Datafication.” New Media ingly be working consumers, and the impli- and Society. cations of this reality for them, especially —Dujarier, Marie-Anne. 2016. “Three Sociological their greater vulnerability to exploitation. Types of Consumer Work.” Journal of Consumer Culture 16: 555–571. —Fox, Stephen. 2014. Conclusion “Third Wave Do-It-Yourself.” Technology in Society 39: While what is being presented here is a high- 18–30. —Gill, Rosalind, and Pratt, ly pessimistic view of the current state, and Andy. 2008. “In the Social especially the future, of working consumers Factory: Immaterial Labor, in prosumer capitalism, it is possible to offer Precariousness and Cultural Work.” Theory, Culture and a more optimistic scenario based especially Society 25: 1–30. on non-profit sites (e.g., Wikipedia, Firefox, —Marx, Karl. 1867/1967. most blogs) on the Internet. Here are sites Capital, vol. 1. New York: International Publishers. and enterprises controlled by working con- George Ritzer, Distinguished University —Prahalad, C. K., and sumers that operate largely for their benefit Professor Emeritus at the University of Ramaswamy, V. 2004. The Future of Competition: Co- rather than for the profitability of capitalists. Maryland, was named a Distinguished-Scholar Creating Unique Value with Teacher there and received the American Working consumption can be empowering Customers. Cambridge, MA: because people are in control of what they Sociological Association’s Distinguished Harvard Business School Press. Contribution to Teaching Award. He holds an both produce and consume. They do so to —Radford, Jason, and Honorary Doctorate from La Trobe University Lazer, David. Forthcoming. benefit themselves andnot the bottom line and the Robin William Lectureship from “Big Data for Sociological of capitalistic enterprises. More important- the Eastern Sociological Society. He has Research.” In George Ritzer ly, they do so—and without pay—for many chaired four Sections of the ASA—Theoretical and Wendy Wiedenhoft (eds.), Wiley-Blackwell other working consumers who can use the Sociology, Organizations and Occupations, Global and Transnational Sociology, and the Companion to Sociology, systems they help to create at little or no cost. History of Sociology. Among his books in 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Wiley- Blackwell. The collaboration that occurs on prosump- theory are Sociology: A Multiple Paradigm —Rieder, Kirsten, and tion sites enables the offering of many goods Science (1975/1980) and Metatheorzing in Voss, G. Gunter. 2010. and services free of charge (or close to it). Sociology (1991). In the application of social “The Working Customer: theory to the social world, his books include Consequently, working consumption can be An Emerging New The McDonaldization of Society: Into the Type of Consumer.” seen as destabilizing to traditional capital- Digital Age (9th ed., 2018), Enchanting a Journal Psychologie ism. Thus, working consumption is capable Disenchanted World (3rd ed. 2010), and The des Alltagshandelns / of producing a new economic system that is Globalization of Nothing (2nd ed., 2007). His Psychology of Everyday Activity 3: 2–10. empowering, democratic, and of benefit to books have been translated into over twenty languages, with more than a dozen translations —Ritzer, George. 1983. all (or, at least, many more) involved. “The McDonaldization of The McDonaldization of Society alone. Most While one would like to embrace this of Society.” Journal of of his widely cited work over the last decade— American Culture 6: more optimistic scenario, the fact is that and currently—deals with prosumption. 100–107. Work in the Age of Data 14

—Ritzer, George. 1993. The McDonaldization of Society. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. —Ritzer, George. 2012. “‘Hyperconsumption’ and ‘Hyperdebt’: A ‘Hypercritical’ Analysis.” In Ralph Brubaker, Robert W. Lawless, and Charles J. Tabb, A Debtor World: Interdisciplinary Perspective on Debt. New York: Oxford University Press: 60–80. —Ritzer, George. 2014. “Prosumption: Evolution, Revolution, or Eternal Return of the Same?” Journal of Consumer Culture 14(1): 3–24. —Ritzer, George. 2015a. “Prosumer Capitalism” Sociological Quarterly 56: 413–445. —Ritzer, George. 2015b. “Automating Prosumption: The Decline of the Prosumer and the Rise of Prosuming Machines.” Journal of Consumer Culture 15: 407–424. —Ritzer, George. 2019. The McDonaldization of Society: Into the Digital Age, 9th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. —Ritzer, George, and Jurgenson, Nathan. 2010. “Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The Nature of Capitalism in the Age of the Digital Prosumer.” Journal of Consumer Culture 10(1): 13–36. —Rusbridger, Alan. 2018. The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. —Tapscott, Don, and Williams, Anthony D. 2008. Wikinomics. Atlantic Books. —Toffler, Alvin. 1980. The Third Wave. New York: William Morrow & Company. —Toffler, Alvin, and Toffler, Heidi. 2006. Revolutionary Wealth. New York: Doubleday. —Vargo, Stephen L., and Lusch, Robert F.. 2004. “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing.” The Journal of Marketing 68: 1–17. GEORGE RITZER HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE Ritzer, George. “The Increasing Importance of Working Consumers: The Impact on Paid Workers.” In Work in the Age of Data. Madrid: BBVA, 2019.

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