With a Different Marx: Value and the Contradictions of Web 2.0 Capitalism

This perspective examines the source of value in Web 2.0 enterprises such as Facebook and Google by analyzing the advertising model that supplies the bulk of their revenues. Drawing on Marx's understanding of the circulation of value within the capitalist economy as a whole and his concepts of unproductive labor, subsumption of labor, costs of circulation, commercial capital, and primitive accumulation, we analyze the economic relationships of Web 2.0 capital, proposing that revenues from advertising come from value produced in non-Web 2.0 sectors of the economy. On this basis we critique both Fuchs's and Arvidsson and Colleoni's positions on the origin of value in Web 2.0 and recognize some of the difficulties and contradictions of the advertising model as a form of monetization of free services for Web 2.0 capital.

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