13
ARTICLE
Production, Consumption,
Prosumption
The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital ‘prosumer’
GEORGE RITZER AND NATHAN JURGENSON
University of Maryland, USA
Abstract
This article deals with the rise of prosumer capitalism. Prosumption involves both
production and consumption rather than focusing on either one (production) or the
other (consumption). It is maintained that earlier forms of capitalism (producer and
consumer capitalism) were themselves characterized by prosumption. Given the recent
explosion of user-generated content online, we have reason to see prosumption as
increasingly central. In prosumer capitalism, control and exploitation take on a
different character than in the other forms of capitalism: there is a trend toward
unpaid rather than paid labor and toward offering products at no cost, and the system
is marked by a new abundance where scarcity once predominated.These trends
suggest the possibility of a new, prosumer, capitalism.
Key words
consumption ● Facebook ● prosumption ● social networking sites ● Web 2.0
INTRODUCTION
Over the last few centuries, the economy of the developed (and much of
the less-developed) world has been dominated by capitalism. Its early years
were dominated by production, especially in the factory. Much more
recently, the focus shifted to consumption (with the shopping mall coming
to rival, or even supplant, the factory as the center of the economy).
Journal of Consumer Culture
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However, it is our premise that the capitalist economy (and even pre- and
non-capitalist economies) has always been dominated by prosumption
(Ritzer, 2009). Prosumption involves both production and consumption
rather than focusing on either one (production) or the other (consumption).
While prosumption has always been preeminent, a series of recent
social changes, especially those associated with the internet and Web 2.0
(briefly, the user-generated web, e.g. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter), have
given it even greater centrality.1 However, while capitalist forces and
interests have sought to gain control over prosumption on these sites and
elsewhere, they have thus far met with mixed success. Furthermore, to the
degree that it has become involved, capitalism has had to make a series of
compromises that leads one to wonder what type of capitalism it is (and
even whether in the end it is capitalism as we have known it).The main
focus of this article will be on capitalism in the age of the prosumer and
the fact that it is quite different from capitalist systems that are more focused
on either production or consumption. More specifically, in prosumer
capitalism control and exploitation take on a different character than in the
other forms of capitalism, there is a trend toward unpaid rather than paid
labor and toward offering products at no cost, and the system is marked
by a new abundance where scarcity once predominated. Before we can
further explicate these theses, we need to offer an overview of production,
consumption, and prosumption.
PRODUCTION, CONSUMPTION, PROSUMPTION
From the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and for about two
centuries thereafter, the economy of the West, if not western society in its
entirety, was said to be defined by production. When one thought about
the economy in that period, the focus was almost always on production.
The term ‘producer’ might not have always been used before society, but
that is certainly what most observers had in mind when they thought about
the ‘center’ of society.The best example of such thinking is, of course, to
be found in the work of Karl Marx who, although he fully understood that
production always involved consumption (and vice versa), clearly believed
that it was production that was pre-eminent in the capitalism of his day.
Production predominated for almost two centuries, but a rather
dramatic shift began to take place, especially beginning in the USA, with
the close of the Second World War. For one thing, the war, in the USA in
particular,meant a focus on production,especially of war materiel,and there
was, as a result, comparatively little for its citizens to consume. However,
the relative absence of consumer goods did not destroy, and may have even
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encouraged, a longing for them. For another, the production of consumer
goods (e.g. refrigerators, automobiles) boomed after the war, and it was met
by,and served to satisfy,at least to some degree,consumer demand.Furthermore,
this process fed on itself as the success of the post-war economy in
terms of the mass-production of consumer goods led to ever-increasing
consumer interest and demand (Cohen, 2003).
Beginning largely in the 1960s,2 production, especially in the USA,
began a long decline as reflected in the problems in heavy industry devoted
to the manufacture of consumer goods (steel, tires, etc.) and the emergence
of the ‘rustbelt’ in the Midwest. Production was still seen as pre-eminent,
but the pendulum was swinging in the direction of the centrality of
consumption as reflected by the birth and expansion of the many
‘cathedrals of consumption’ in the 1950s and 1960s – Disneyland, indoor
shopping malls, fast food restaurants, and many more (Ritzer, 2005). Of
course, there was much more to the expansion of consumption in this
period – changes and increases in the objects of consumption, the subjects of
consumption (the consumers), consumption processes, as well as the kinds of
consumption sites mentioned above (Ritzer et al., 2001).And this far from
exhausts expansion in this area – there was also growth in marketing,
advertising, branding, and the like.
Things began to grow worse for American heavy industry beginning
with the oil crisis of 1973, the resulting rise – led by the Japanese automobile
industry – of the small car, and the beginning of the painful decline
of the American automobile industry (a decline that may have reached its
nadir in 2009 with the bankruptcy of both Chrysler and General Motors).
Of course,Americans continued to consume, in fact at an accelerating rate,
but it was increasingly likely to be goods produced elsewhere, including
and perhaps especially Japanese products, such as automobiles and electronics
of all types.The various elements associated with consumption continued
their relentless expansion as, for example,America’s cathedrals of consumption
proliferated and new ones –Wal-Mart,Mall of America,the reinvented
and themed LasVegas Strip – emerged.As the 20th century moved toward
its conclusion, the cathedrals of consumption, the goods (increasingly
produced in China) and services sold there,and the consumers who bought
them,had to a large degree replaced the factory at the heart of theAmerican
economy and, more generally,American society.3
In spite of the centrality of consumption in the USA, it was not an
American, but a French social theorist, Jean Baudrillard (1998[1970]), who
very early on recognized this trend. He argued that especially but not
exclusively in the USA, a ‘consumer society’ had emerged.4 Coming from
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a Marxian tradition, Baudrillard had early in his career accorded central
importance to production. However, as he was moving toward a break with
Marxian theory and its focus on production, Baudrillard came to recognize
the increasing centrality of consumption. He described an age of affluence
in which many people surround themselves with consumer objects; he
contended that ‘consumption is laying hold of the whole of life’
(Baudrillard, 1998[1970]: 10). He even recognized the importance of the
cathedrals of consumption (or, using one of Marx’s [1981[1884]: 471; see
also Ritzer, 2005] less well-known concepts, the ‘means of consumption’),
although he accorded undue significance to the Parisian drugstore, which
was to be far outstripped by many American cathedrals of consumption
(e.g. the fully enclosed indoor shopping mall). Baudrillard also linked the
importance of the growth in credit5 (especially in the USA) to the rise of
the consumer society, an importance that was to increase greatly in the
ensuing decades (Manning, 2000; Ritzer, 1995).
Many have since written about consumer society, while others have
used the term ‘consumer culture’ to describe much the same phenomenon
(e.g. Featherstone, 1991; Goodman and Cohen, 2004; Slater, 1997). Instead
of focusing on the structure of consumer society, the notion of consumer
culture draws our attention to the norms, values, and meanings associated
with a society dominated by consumption.Whether it is called consumer
society, consumer culture, or even consumer capitalism is less significant
than the fact that all of these ideas draw our attention to the increasing
importance of consumption, especially relative to production.
Thus, it has been argued that those in the USA (and others in most
developed countries) have, for roughly the last half century, or less, been
living in a society in which consumption is increasingly central. However,
production, although of declining importance compared to consumption,
continues to play a key role in the US economy and society.Yet, it is hard
to ignore, especially in the USA, both the decline of production and the
dramatic increase in the importance of, and accorded to, consumption.
Manifestations of this are everywhere. For example, the US stock market is
highly sensitive to changes in the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI;
begun in 1985). Or, after 9/11, both the Mayor of New York and the
President of the United States were so fearful that people would stop
consuming and thereby undercut the economy that they urged citizens to
get out and shop; it had seemingly become the ‘public duty’ of citizens to
consume. In 2008, the federal government distributed a substantial tax
rebate to most residents in an effort to help ward off a burgeoning
recession.However,the government feared (correctly) that many would not
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use the money to consume, but would rather pay off debts or even just save
it (the savings rate did increase).
However, beginning in late 2007 both consumption and production
declined as a result of the global ‘great recession.’While the increasing preeminence
of prosumption, and the growing attention to it, were not caused
by the recession,the decline of both production and consumption,arguably,
made space for greater scholarly interest in and concern with prosumption.
There are signs that consumer (and producer) society is beginning to be
challenged in importance by what might be called ‘prosumer society’.
Prosumer society
The term prosumer is generally attributed to Alvin Toffler (1980) who
devoted considerable attention to it in The Third Wave.Toffler argued that
prosumption was predominant in pre-industrial societies;what he called the
‘first wave’. It was followed by a ‘second wave’ of marketization that drove
‘a wedge into society, that separated these two functions, thereby giving
birth to what we now call producers and consumers’ (Toffler, 1980: 266).
Thus, the primordial economic form is neither production nor consumption,
but rather it is prosumption. However, in Toffler’s view, contemporary
society is moving away from the aberrant separation of production and
consumption and towards a ‘third wave’ that, in part, signals their reintegration
in‘the rise of the prosumer’(Toffler,1980:265).Similarly,Ritzer (2009)
has argued that it was the Industrial Revolution that, to some extent,
separated production and consumption, but he also contends that even at
the height of the Industrial Revolution production and consumption were
never fully distinct (producers consumed raw materials; consumers
produced their meals).The major social theorists of production (e.g. Marx)
and consumption (e.g. Baudrillard) too strongly distinguished between
these two spheres; they can be said to have suffered from either a productivist
and/or a consumptionist bias.This false binary is rejected in this article
(see also Ritzer,2009),which,instead,is premised on the idea that the focus
should always have been on the prosumer.
It is only recently that prosumption has become an important topic in
the literature.Writing on business issues, Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004)
discuss this trend under the label of ‘value co-creation’ and Tapscott and
Williams (2006) see the prosumer as a part of a new ‘wikinomic’ model
where businesses put consumers to work.These models,as well as the whole
idea of relying on consumers to produce, is criticized by Andrew Keen
(2007) in Cult of the Amateur. Beer and Burrows (2007) see new relations
between production and consumption emerging online, especially on Web
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2.0, a topic we will elaborate on below. Humphreys and Grayson (2008)
have discussed prosumption in relation to Marxian theory. Zwick et al.
(2008) relate prosumption to Foucauldian and neo-Marxian theory,
concluding that prosumption means companies are granting new freedom
to consumers.6 They argue that ‘the ideological recruitment of consumers
into productive co-creation relationships hinges on accommodating
consumers’ needs for recognition, freedom, and agency’ (2008: 185). Xie et
al. (2008) discuss the general propensity to engage in prosumption. Ritzer
and Jurgenson (2008) theorize the emerging importance of prosumption
and the prosumer, and Jurgenson (2010) argues that prosumption online
marks a reversal of the historic trend toward increasing rationalization in
favor of a deMcDonaldization of, at least, the internet.
More concretely, in the McDonaldization of Society, Ritzer (2008[1993])
discusses how consumers have been put to work in the fast food industry;
the ‘diner’ at a fast food restaurant, the consumer of that food, is also, at least
to some degree, a producer of the meal. Among other things, diners are
expected to serve as their own waiters carrying their meals to their tables
or back to their cars, sandwich makers (by adding fixings such as tomatoes,
lettuce, and onions in some chains), salad makers (by creating their own
salads at the salad bar), and bus persons (by disposing of their own debris
after the meal is finished).
This trend toward putting consumers to work – turning them into
prosumers – accelerated after the birth of the fast food restaurant in the
mid-1950s.Among the examples are:
● pumping one’s own gasoline at the filling station;
● serving as a bank teller at the ATM machine;
● working at the checkout counter at the supermarket by scanning one’s
own food, bagging it, and paying for it by credit card;
● using electronic kiosks to check into a hotel and at the airport, to
purchase movie tickets, etc.;
● co-creating a variety of experiences such as moving oneself through
Disney World and its many attractions or serving as an ‘actor’ in the
theatre ‘staged’ by Starbucks designed to create the image of an oldfashioned
coffee house (Ritzer, 2008[1993]);
● using do-it-yourself medical technologies (e.g. blood pressure monitors,
blood glucose monitors, pregnancy tests) that allow patients to perform,
without recompense, tasks formerly performed by paid medical
professionals;
● being a caller on a call-in radio show;
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● being part of Reality TV (Andrejevic, 2003);
● being involved in amateur pornography (e.g. the Girls Gone Wild video
series).
Then there is a wide range of subtler and less material examples of
prosumption. Much of what transpires online, especially on what has come
to be known as Web 2.0, is generated by the user.Web 2.0 is contrasted to
Web 1.0 (e.g. AOL,Yahoo), which was (and still is) provider- rather than
user-generated.Web 2.0 is defined by the ability of users to produce content
collaboratively, whereas most of what exists on Web 1.0 is provider-generated.
It is onWeb 2.0 that there has been a dramatic explosion in prosumption.
It can be argued that Web 2.0 should be seen as crucial in the
development of the ‘means of prosumption’;Web 2.0 facilitates the implosion
of production and consumption.7 Examples include:
● Wikipedia, where users generate articles and continually edit, update,
and comment on them (Konieczny, 2009).
● Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking websites, where users
create profiles composed of videos, photos, and text, interact with one
another, and build communities (boyd, 2006, 2008a, 2008b).
● Second Life, where users create the characters, communities, and the
entire virtual environment (Herman et al, 2006).
● The blogosphere, blogs (Web logs), microblogging (Twitter) and the
comments on them produced by those who consume them.
● eBay8 and craigslist, where consumers (along with retailers) create the
market.
● YouTube and Flickr, where mostly amateurs upload and download
videos and photographs.
● Current TV, where viewers create much of the programming, submit it
via the internet, and decide which submissions are aired.
● Linux, a free, collaboratively-built, open-source operating system, and
other open-source software applications, such as Mozilla Firefox, that
are created and maintained by those who use them (Lessig, 2006;
Stewart, 2005).
● Amazon.com, where consumers do all the work involved in ordering
products and write the reviews.Also, the users’ buying habits and site
navigation are documented to recommend products.
● Yelp!, where users create an online city guide by ranking, reviewing and
discussing various locations and activities in their area.
● The GeoWeb, which consists of online maps where, increasingly, users
are creating and augmenting content with Google, Microsoft, and
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Yahoo tools (Helft, 2007). Google Maps users, for example, can fix
errors; add the locations of businesses; upload photos; link Wikipedia
articles to, and blog about their experiences with, or reviews of, places
on the map, thereby creating social communities.Additionally, new
‘location awareness’ tools, often used in conjunction with ‘smart’ cell
phones with GPS technology, allow users to track where they are at any
given moment and upload this information to websites such as
Facebook,Twitter or one’s blog. Some examples include Google
Latitude,Yahoo’s Fire Eagle and the Loopt mobile phone application.9
Prosumption was clearly not invented on Web 2.0, but given the massive
involvement in, and popularity of, many of these developments (e.g. social
networking sites), it can be argued that it is currently both the most
prevalent location of prosumption and its most important facilitator as a
‘means of prosumption’.
CAPITALISM IN THE AGE OF THE PROSUMER
Capitalism, at least as it was originally conceptualized (especially by Marx
and the early Marxists), was focused on the relationship between the
producers (workers,the proletariat) and the capitalists.The key site in (early)
capitalism was the factory, a setting clearly focally devoted to production.
Thus we have little difficulty associating early capitalism with production.
It was clearly recognized that workers needed to consume (e.g. raw
materials) in order to produce and that which flowed out of those capitalist
factories had to be bought and used by consumers. However, consumption
in early capitalism was clearly subordinated to production.10
Over time, as has already been pointed out, the consumer and
consumption grew in importance, especially in the developed world, and
production declined. Eventually, some developed societies (especially the
USA) came to be defined more by consumption than production.While
this was a dramatic change, some observers (e.g. Baudrillard) had little
difficulty thinking of this new economic world in terms of capitalism, as
consumer capitalism.While it was easy to see that the capitalist exploited
workers, this was less clearly the case with consumers. Nonetheless,
capitalists clearly ‘overcharged’11 consumers and this served to enhance
their profits in a way similar to the way that subsistence wages paid to
workers (‘underpaying’ them) were key to the high profits reaped by early
capitalists.
However, the issue to be addressed here is whether the idea of capitalism,
at least as we have known it, can be extended to the prosumer; are we
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in, or entering, the age of ‘prosumer capitalism’? To answer this question,
we need to clearly distinguish between ‘traditional prosumers’ (e.g., those
who clean up their own debris in fast food restaurants) and newer forms
of prosumption (especially those associated with Web 2.0). In the case of
traditional prosumers, it is difficult to accept the idea that we have entered
a new stage of capitalism. Rather, it appears that capitalists have found
another group of people – beyond workers (producers) – to exploit and a
new source of surplus value. In this case, capitalism has merely done what
it has always done – found yet another way to expand (others are globally,
as well as colonizing the minds and bodies of those involved in the system).
The answer is much more complex in the case of the new forms of
prosumption associated with Web 2.0. On the one hand, these prosumers
can be seen as being involved in an extended form of traditional capitalism
in the sense that they can be viewed as merely encompassing the roles
(producer and consumer) already under the control of the capitalist.
However, there are also unique characteristics involved in the relationship
between capitalism and prosumption on the internet that make it possible
to argue that capitalism has indeed entered a new and very different phase.
There are indications that capitalism is having a difficult time gaining
control over at least some of the prosumers on Web 2.0 (this is illustrated
below). This means that, at the minimum, capitalists will have a different
relationship with such prosumers than it has with producers, consumers, or
more traditional prosumers (e.g., in the fast food restaurant). More
extremely, it may well be that capitalism itself will be transformed, perhaps
radically, in the prosumer age. Several factors lead us to this conclusion and
they will be the focus of most of the remainder of this discussion.
The first is the inability of capitalists to control contemporary
prosumers in the way – and to the degree – that they have been able to
control producers, consumers, and traditional prosumers. There is greater
resistance to the incursions of capitalism (e.g., efforts to gain greater control
and greater profits) by at least some contemporary prosumers than by any
of the others. Of course, at an earlier point in history, producers (through
labor unions) and consumers (through consumer movements) offered much
more resistance to capitalism (there is no evidence that traditional
prosumers resisted the ways in which they were used by capitalists), but
today neither offers much in the way of opposition to the capitalist system,
at least in the USA.
Second, it is difficult to think of prosumers as being exploited in the
same ways as producers and even consumers are exploited.The idea that
the prosumer is exploited is contradicted by, among other things, the fact
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that prosumers seem to enjoy,even love,what they are doing and are willing
to devote long hours to it for no pay.
Third, there is at least the possibility of the emergence of a whole new
economic form, especially on the internet. Capitalism involves the
exchange of money for goods and services, and profits are made in those
exchanges. However, little or no money changes hands between the users
and the owners of many websites (for instance, users do not pay Facebook
or Twitter to use the services). On the one hand, there is the unwillingness
of corporations and other organizations to pay for work done by prosumers.
On the other hand, prosumers increasingly prefer, and are able, to pay little
or nothing for that which they consume on the internet (news, blogs, social
networking sites, and so on) (Anderson, 2009). If capitalism is ultimately
based on (unequal) exchanges based on a money economy, in such a ‘free’
economy can we be said to have capitalism in its traditional sense, or are
we beginning to see the emergence of the outlines of a new form of
capitalism? It is also the case that while this new form is apt to be capitalist
in nature, it is also possible – albeit not likely given the power of
capitalism – that it will develop into some entirely new economic system.
Fourth, traditional capitalism, either producer or consumer capitalism,
is based on scarcity, but prosumer capitalism online is increasingly a world
of abundance. In a world of scarcity, the economy is based, as Weber
(1968[1921]) recognized, on rationality, especially efficiency. However, little
attention in prosumer capitalism is given to maximizing efficiency; instead,
the focus is on increasing effectiveness ( Jurgenson and Ritzer,2009).Almost
unlimited resources can be devoted to finding effective results.
We will discuss each of these four points in turn in the following
sections. The discussion will lead us to the conclusion that the world of
prosumption, at least as it occurs on the internet, is capitalistic, but it has
enough unique characteristics to allow us to begin to think of it as possibly
a new form of capitalism.
The inability of capitalists to control contemporary prosumers and
their greater resistance to the incursions of capitalism
A major roadblock to capitalism, at least as we’ve known it, on Web 2.0 is
the cyber-libertarian (Kelemen and Smith, 2001) or ‘hacker’ (Levy, 1984)
ethic developed, implemented and supported by the early developers of the
internet, and continuing to be a force to this day, especially on Web 2.0.
The internet was – and is – seen by many as revolutionary and utopian.
Cyber-libertarians are both strong believers in the internet and in radical
individualism and democracy in their relationship with it and its sites.Some
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have described this as ‘digital socialism’ (Kelly, 2009), while for others it
is much in line with a radical right-wing orientation. In either case, its
basic premises – most importantly, freedom – stand opposed to capitalist
organizations that seek to control and exploit those involved in it (Turner,
2006).
However,toward the end of the 20th century,corporations increasingly
became involved in incursions online and much of their involvement was,
of course, oriented toward finding ways to profit from this new environment.This
posed a profound threat to the cyber-libertarians. However, the
bursting of the ‘dot com’ bubble in late 2000 had a profoundly negative
effect on corporate presence on the internet.As corporations became wary
of the internet and its profit potential, many people saw an opportunity to
rebuild the cyber-libertarian project online. Wikipedia and open-source
projects such as Linux are examples of the resurgence of cyber-libertarianism.
As a result of this resurgence, as well as the fact that connection speeds
increased dramatically because of the diffusion of broadband technologies,
infinitely more people were able to access and utilize the internet, shrinking,
in at least some senses, the ‘digital divide’ (Drori and Suk Jang, 2003).
The web environment became more collaborative and social (Lacy, 2008).
Nevertheless, corporations certainly did not abandon the internet. Many
remained and many new ones were drawn to it by its enormous growth
and potential. Today powerful and highly profitable corporations such as
Microsoft and Google are battling for a greater presence and power on the
internet. However, the orientation of capitalism and its goals – especially
ever-increasing profits – are in conflict with the cyber-libertarianism that
remains a strong presence online on sites such as Wikipedia, Linux, and
Creative Commons communities.Thus, profit-making corporations cannot
ride roughshod over the internet; they must find ways of adapting, at least
for the moment, to this new web ethic, especially on Web 2.0.
This being said, it is quite apparent that an anti-corporate cyberlibertarian
agenda is not universally shared online; many on the internet are
completely unaware of it and unquestioningly accept and use sites and
services of corporate entities such as Google,Yahoo, Flickr, and craigslist.
Thus, in large parts of the internet, even those associated with Web 2.0,
capitalism continues with little resistance.
However, not all prosumers are happy with this situation and in some
cases have rebelled, especially against being asked to contribute to corporate
sites without pay.While some of this resistance is rooted in an explicit
or implicit cyber-libertarianism, it also stems from much more individual
motives and desires. Further, much of it stems from capitalism itself and the
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desire of those who work in the system – in this case prosume in it – to
be paid for their services.
Take the example of LinkedIn, a Web 2.0 site devoted to professional
networking with 42 million members worldwide (Newman, 2009). Its
content is currently translated into four languages, but a mid-2009 survey
asked its members, the prosumers of the site’s content, whether they would
be willing to volunteer to translate the site into other languages.That is,
they were asked to do the work (translating) for no pay.This is highly skilled
work for which people are well-paid in many other contexts.
LinkedIn is a profit-making organization, or at least it would like to be
one, and one way of increasing its profitability is to reach a much larger
audience (through many more translations of its content) and by getting
members to do (more) work for them (they already do such work as downloading
information about themselves) at no pay. LinkedIn is far from the
only Web 2.0 site to attempt the latter. Google asked a number of illustrators
to provide free art work for its browser, Chrome. Facebook asked for
volunteers to translate explanatory language on its Web site into over 20
languages.The translators were asked not only to produce the language but
also to vote among themselves on preferred wording.
The reaction to such attempts, as exemplified in the case of LinkedIn,
has sometimes been strongly negative and it is an indication of the struggle
between capitalists and prosumers over the process of prosumption,
especially as it exists on Web 2.0. In the LinkedIn case, respondents were
asked what non-monetary incentives (e.g. an upgraded LinkedIn account,
no incentive needed ‘because it’s fun’) they would prefer. Many said no
to any of the choices provided, with one LinkedIn participant writing in
that he would prefer ‘cash’ and later complaining about LinkedIn’s ‘effrontery
to ask for a professional service for free’ (Newman, 2009: B2).
LinkedIn and other Web 2.0 sites defend such actions by saying that the
exposure they are offering contributors could lead to paid work, will lead
prosumers to become paid producers (in this instance as translators). Some
members see the merit in this argument with one translator seeing it as
a great opportunity and as a new way to market herself and her skills and
abilities. However, many others clearly do not see it this way, as is
evidenced by those upset with LinkedIn, or in other examples, such as
AOL’s struggles with volunteer labor and (non-)payment (see Postigo,
2003 and Terranova, 2000).
The point here is that opposition to capitalist incursion on the internet
is not restricted to those who adopt an alternate ideology such as cyberlibertarianism.
While some involved in the LinkedIn example may have
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been motivated by a devotion to such an ideology, most undoubtedly
opposed it for much more mundane and prosaic reasons.Thus, there is a
wide base onWeb 2.0 to resist the efforts by capitalists to control and exploit
the prosumers found there. Capitalism will need to deal with both collective
and individual resistance on the internet. The likelihood that such
resistance will continue means that capitalism will need to adapt in various
ways and it is at least possible that what will emerge, at least in this context,
is a new form of capitalism.Such a transformation is made even more likely
by the nature of exploitation on Web 2.0.
Can we say that the prosumer is exploited?
The fact is that many people seem to prefer and to enjoy prosuming, even
in the cases in which they are forced into this position. Traditional
prosumers being handed an empty cup and being forced to fill it – sometimes
over and over – at the soda fountain in a fast food restaurant not only
gives them the possibility of more soda at the same price,but also empowers
them so that they can decide how much, if any ice, they want, as well as
giving them the ability to create unique concoctions of various soda flavors.
On Facebook, empowerment lies in the fact that one can choose exactly
how one wants to present oneself and can alter that presentation at will.
Further, many find Facebook an effective social tool in building and
maintaining contact with others.In addition to modest gains and empowerment,
people can gain quite materially from being a prosumer.This is most
obvious on eBay, but one can profit by gaining recognition as a photographer
on Flickr, or as a journalist on a blog, and use those successes to
become a paid ‘professional’ photographer or journalist. One can build
professional computer programming networks while editing Linux for no
pay.
Thus, we cannot ignore the gains for individuals as reasons for the rise
of prosumption. Beyond that, it seems clear that most prosumers seem to
enjoy their activities.Many seem to truly like scanning their own groceries,
using a self-serve kiosk at the airport, shopping on eBay, or finding and
ordering the relevant books on Amazon.com. Of course, a Marxist might
argue that this is all just a modern version of ‘false consciousness’, this time
manifested by prosumers rather than the proletariat in a productionoriented
economy.However,it is probably more likely that prosumers really
do like doing these things and they are not simply being manipulated into
such feelings by the capitalist. To this point, Paul Hartzog calls profit on
Web 2.0 a‘not too terribly important footnote’and says that it is‘not where
the action is.’12
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If participants like prosumer capitalism on Web 2.0, and it is also less
intrusive, then to what degree can it be thought to be exploitative? From
the point of view of, for example, the fast food restaurant owner/chain
operator, the beauty of the prosumer system is that it serves to reduce the
need to hire paid (albeit poorly paid) personnel to do this work. Instead,
consumers do these formerly paid tasks for no recompense (and do it not
only without complaining, but seemingly find it to be ‘fun’, at least at first).
This serves to buttress the Marxian view of capitalism as an exploitative
system that is constantly searching for new ways to ratchet up the level of
exploitation. It is also consistent with the views of neo-Marxists such as
Roemer (1982) who have moved away from seeing exploitation as occurring
solely in a coercive production process. It can also occur, as it does in
this case, as a result of the unequal possession of productive resources.That
is, in the fast food restaurant (and the other entities of concern here), it is
the owners, not the consumers, who own the productive resources and it
is this that gives them the ability to exploit consumers.
In the fast food restaurant, it is almost impossible to exploit those who
work there much more because the assembly-line nature of much of their
work (e.g. on the griddle) already maximizes what they can do (or at least
comes close to it) and the fact that the minimum wage law prevents them
from being paid any less than they are already paid. However, using the
consumer to do much of the work brings a whole new type and level of
exploitation to the fast food industry.While the worker does this work for
little pay, the consumer does it for absolutely no pay at all. Capitalism has
discovered a way to exploit the labor power of a whole new population –
the consumer as prosumer.13 From the capitalist’s point of view (especially
in terms of low-skilled work), the only thing better than a low-paid worker
is someone (the consumer as prosumer) who does the work for no pay at
all. In Marxian terms, while the worker produces a great deal of surplus
value, the consumer who ‘works’ produces nothing but surplus value.
Exploitation is much more ambiguous in the case of Web 2.0. On the
one hand, organizations (often corporations) ‘own’ the major resources on
Web 2.0 (e.g.Amazon,Wikipedia, Facebook). Users are the producers, but
the profit, or at least the potential for profit, still belongs to corporations.
They give the users the use of at least some of the productive resources.
Sometimes it is as little as giving users the resources needed to choose the
color of their car, sometimes it is as large as allowing users to create their
own Facebook profiles (with very little input from the company).
On the surface, this seems different from what transpires in, say, a fast
food restaurant, where various productive resources are turned over to the
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consumer (the material needed to make a salad or top off a hamburger;
whatever is needed to make the coffee just the way one likes it, etc.).
However, it is the case that on Web 2.0 something much more profound –
part of the underlying system itself (e.g. the Facebook page and the ability
to create its contents) – is turned over to the prosumer.This an important
step and would be akin to doing something fast food restaurants would be
highly reluctant to do – turn over the grill to those who want hamburgers,
for example.14 Nevertheless, even on Web 2.0, while some of the productive
resources may be turned over to the prosumers, the profits, or at least
the profit-potential (from branding, etc.), are retained by the owners (e.g.,
in the case of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales).
Tapscott and Williams (2006: 207), in an analysis of ‘Wikinomics’ (that
includes much of Web 2.0), argue that:‘calling it exploitation goes too far’.
But, is it? In one of their examples, a manufacturer of high-end shoes
obtains design ideas from customers and the best designs are those that are
produced.Those who create the winning designs receive no royalties, but
their names appear on the shoes based on those designs.In the case of Lego’s
Mindstorm, the customers post new applications and as a result the value
of Lego’s product is enhanced. Those who post these applications are
expected to be satisfied with the joys of knowing that they have improved
Mindstorm. Flickr does not share its advertising revenue with the creators
of the photos on the site. The same is true of much else associated with
Web 2.0.
Tapscott and Williams (2006: 193) see the need to go beyond ‘the
culture of generosity’ that prevails in the world of wikinomics. That is,
people are expected to contribute to connect with others, to create an
online identity for themselves, to express themselves, to gain attention, but
not to share in whatever profits can be wrung from their generosity.Tapscott
and Williams argue that the system will work better if stakeholders (the
consumer-amateurs) are ‘adequately’ rewarded.This is the logic of capitalism
(although the capitalists’ sense of what constitutes adequate reward is
severely limited), and therefore Tapscott and Williams are arguing that
wikinomic systems need to be more, and more overtly, capitalistic.Where
this step is taken, we will be back to a more traditional capitalistic system,
albeit one without paid employees and their attendant costs (e.g., health
care benefits).
The possibility of the emergence of a whole new economic form
While capitalistic organizations seek, by definition, to make a profit, they
are opposed in this by the cyber-libertarian ethic, which is not only about
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individual freedom on the internet, but is also very much concerned with
making much of what is found on Web 2.0, especially information, free of
charge and universally accessible (Levy, 1984). Cyber-libertarianism is the
backbone of the open-source movement, and provides the ideological
underpinning for the development and proliferation of non-profit webbrowsers
(Mozilla’s Firefox as opposed to the for-profit Microsoft Internet
Explorer), operating systems (Linux versus the for-profit Apple OSX or
Microsoft’s Windows), encyclopedias (Wikipedia versus the for-profit
Encyclopedia Britannica), and so on.
As a result of the existence and success of these non-profit entities, and
more generally of cyber-libertarianism, users increasingly expect that what
is on the internet be made available free of charge.Obviously,such a notion
and reality are anathema to capitalism, at least in its traditional form.
Companies have found it difficult, or impossible, to charge for their
services on the internet. Chris Anderson’s (2009) book, Free, demonstrates
that much of the Web 2.0 economy is one where products and especially
services are given away free of charge. One is not charged for access to
YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter, nor are there charges involved in
uploading one’s videos toYouTube, one’s photographs to Flickr, or putting
one’s profile on Facebook orTwitter. One does not pay to read blogs or the
reviews on Amazon or Yelp. Google’s many services (search, online maps,
email, online office suite, even its operating system15) are available at no cost
to the user.The point here is that there is no charge for most of that which
is prosumed online. Obviously, this presents an interesting dilemma for
companies that want to make a profit. A company that expects its users to
produce content is often expected, in turn, to offer access as well as the
product to the prosumer at little or no cost. Flickr, for example, has come
to dominate the photo-hosting market at least in part because it does not
charge for its services. If it did, it would undoubtedly lose market share to
its competitors or to new companies that would come into existence to fill
the void left by the departure of Flickr for a profit-making world.
Web 2.0 companies are able, at least in the short-run, to give their
products away free of charge because the cost of hosting photos, email
accounts, videos, social networking profiles, and so on is very low and is
ever-decreasing.While the initial infrastructure and design of a web service
is quite high, the marginal cost for the business of adding another email
account, or uploading an additional YouTube video or Flickr photograph,
approaches zero (Anderson 2009).
The difficulties involved in giving one’s product away free of charge
have led many Web 2.0 companies to fail or to struggle to eke out a profit.
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Currently, Facebook’s expenditures far exceed its earnings. As of this
writing,Twitter has yet to develop a profit model and has been operating
on a continuous flow of new investment money (Miller, 2009).This is not
to say that Web 2.0 companies cannot, or will not, become profitable.
Indeed, some sites have already become profitable.16 However, they are the
exceptions and the likelihood is that most Web 2.0 sites will continue to
be unprofitable and even lose considerable amounts of money.
It is important to remember, however, that some Web 2.0 entities (e.g.
Amazon.com) were, from the beginning, oriented toward making a profit.
Others, however, are created for a wide range of reasons and with a very
unclear sense of whether they could be profitable or even how profits could
be earned from them (Lacy, 2008).The goal for most Web 2.0 companies
is to create, and later enhance, the ‘value’ of their site (by, for example,
turning it into a well-known brand).They do this by increasing the number
of users through publicity and increasing visibility, by expanding what the
site has to offer mainly on the basis of what prosumers contribute to it, by
having the costs of development (largely labor costs and computer equipment)
borne mainly by the prosumers developing the site, by branding the
site and perhaps ultimately through the creation of various revenue streams.
Obviously, the hope of some (and in some cases already the reality) is that
Web 2.0 sites will produce profits, in some cases enormous profits. How
do they, or will they, generate profits?
● Selling information, often for advertising purposes. Much of the
enormous value of Facebook is traceable to the fact that all of the data
provided there by users – and continually updated – can be used to
generate profit in many different ways, primarily advertising. Google
makes its money through advertising utilizing its AdSense and AdWords
models.
● Generating spin-offs (e.g.Wikia from Wikipedia).
● Using the Web 2.0 site and brand as a base for success both online and
in other domains.Web 2.0 brands (e.g. Facebook, Google,Wikipedia)
are now highly valuable, not necessarily for what they are earning now
but for the earnings they can generate in the future. In the new worlds
of consumer and prosumer capitalism, the brand is all important,
whereas in earlier production-oriented capitalism the goal was to create
a profitable product with the hope that it, in turn, would generate a
successful brand. Now, the situation is largely reversed and it is the
brand that comes first, the profitable product will follow (it is hoped
and assumed, not without good reason) once the brand is
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institutionalized. For instance, Google hopes to exploit the popularity
of theYouTube brand and ultimately to earn profits from it.
● Holding back part of what can be offered and charging for it (e.g.,
craigslist charges only for job ads; the Flickr ‘pro’ account); what is
called a ‘freemium’ model (basic and free for most, premium and paid
for some).
● Charging for maintenance, support and additions to the basic system
Ultimately, from a capitalist point of view,Web 2.0 is all about sites creating
‘competitive advantages’ vis-à-vis other sites. Those that succeed (e.g.
Google) will be among the titans of what might be a new form of
capitalism.
Abundance (rather than scarcity) and effectiveness (rather than
efficiency)
Prosumer capitalism is based on a system where content is abundant and
created by those not on the payroll.The costs for companies to host vast
amounts of digital content is dropping and the sheer number of users
creating content on sites such as Facebook is increasing, leading to a market
increasingly characterized by abundance (Anderson, 2009).We have argued
elsewhere that this abundance, this post-scarcity system, leads to less of a
focus on efficiency and rationality than is the case in traditional capitalism
and capitalistic organizations ( Jurgenson, 2010; Jurgenson and Ritzer,
2009). In an abundant market, companies are less concerned with such
things as maximizing the efficiency of producing, and the quantity of,
output.When scarcity is removed from the equation,efficiency with respect
to content becomes less important.Thus,because prosumers are unpaid and
because they are producing so much, Web 2.0 sites do not care how inefficiently
they operate or how inefficient it is to have so many people
devote so much time to these tasks. Abundance is everywhere in the
number of people involved, the time they devote to the tasks, their output,
and so on. Such abundance is in stark contrast to the realities faced by
traditional capitalistic systems.
Instead of focusing on efficiency, this new capitalism is largely focused
on the creation of effective products and services.That is, the concern is
with the quality of what is produced irrespective of what it takes to produce
products or services. For example,Wikipedia is based on a system of nearly
infinite inputs designed in the end to get an entry right and up-to-date no
matter what it takes for the prosumers who create the entry. This model
would be impossible in a traditional, profit-making competitor such as
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Encyclopedia Britannica which, in order to make a profit, would need to limit
greatly inputs from paid contributors to its entries.17
CONCLUSION
Thus, what we see with digital prosumption online is the emergence of
what may be a new form of capitalism. Its uniqueness is made clear in the
four major points in this article – capitalists have more difficulty controlling
prosumers than producers or consumers and there is a greater likelihood
of resistance on the part of prosumers; the exploitation of prosumers
is less clear-cut; a distinct economic system may be emerging there where
services are free and prosumers are not paid for their work; and there is
abundance rather than scarcity, a focus on effectiveness rather than efficiency
in prosumer capitalism.
The position taken here stands in contrast to Humphreys and Grayson
(2008) who argue that when corporations are involved, prosumption is
simply the creation of ‘temporary employees’ and thus does not indicate a
fundamental change in capitalism. However, in our analysis, entire business
models based around prosumers (the so called ‘temporary employees’) who
are unpaid and given the product for free indicates the possibility of a new
form of capitalism built upon the four principles outlined in this article.
In producer and consumer capitalism, corporations are likely to exert
great control over the production and/or consumption of content (goods
and services),but in prosumer capitalism companies are more likely to stand
back and to meddle less with the prosumers who are producing and
consuming the content. The idea is more to get out of the way of the
prosumers than to seek to control them. Tapscott and Williams outlined
something similar in Wikinomics (2006) arguing that companies should not
try to predict what users will do with content production tools. Similarly,
Zwick et al. (2008) discuss an economic politics of prosumption that is
based on the freedom and creativity of the consumer.
To take a specific example, YouTube does not need to control the
quality of videos it hosts. As it can host as many videos as people want to
upload, YouTube does not have to make many decisions about what is
created (besides issues relating to copyright, vulgarity, etc.). Facebook does
little to dictate how its users use the site, but rather lets them use it the way
they wish,even to the degree that when users complained about the privacy
policy, the company put the new policy to a user vote (Richmond, 2009).
Companies seek to create sites and services that users will find comfortable
and useful in the hope that they can find a way of eventually turning a
profit.To a large degree, companies do not seek to dictate how prosumers
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use the sites because they do not have to and, if they did, the quality of
what would be produced on the sites would likely decline.
While we offered a sense of the relationship between prosumption,Web
2.0 and capitalism as they exist circa 2010, all are undergoing dramatic
changes, as are their relationships to one another. Each of these will need
to be continually monitored in the coming years, as will their interrelationships.
Of particular interest will be the ability of capitalism to adapt to new
developments in prosumption and on the internet (e.g. the emergence of
Web 3.0, and beyond). Given its past record of successes, it is difficult to
bet against the adaptability and power of capitalism, but it is confronting a
new, continually changing, and uniquely resistant environment.
Notes
1. We discuss Web 2.0 as a whole, although we recognize that there are important
differences among the various sites associated with it (e.g. Linux as software and
Amazon.com as a website).
2. There were certainly industries (e.g. textiles) that had begun to decline long
before this.
3. In an effort to date the change more specifically and more generally (not
restricting the change to the USA), Slater (1997: 10) contends that:‘The 1980s
. . . heralded the subordination of production to consumption . . .’
4. Of course, John Kenneth Galbraith (1999[1958]), among others, had anticipated
this idea in his work on the ‘affluent society’. In fact, Baudrillard cites and draws
on Galbraith’s work as well asVeblen’s even earlier (1994[1899]) thinking on
consumption, especially conspicuous consumption.
5. At an even earlier date, Joseph Schumpeter (1942) had accorded credit a key
role.
6. Zwick et al. (2008) discuss prosumption mainly using the term ‘co-creation.’
7. This parallels Ritzer’s (2005: 50) work on the ‘means of consumption’ to
supplement the idea of the ‘means of production’. He views the means of
consumption as that which facilitates the acquisition of goods and services.
8. In recent years, eBay has moved away from user-generated auctions and toward
those more dominated by traditional retailers and producers.
9. Google Latitude: http://www.google.com/latitude/intro.html; Fire Eagle:
http://fireeagle.yahoo.net/; Loopt: http://www.loopt.com/;Twitter has also
announced that it will allow users to embed their location when posting content
with their service (http://blog.twitter.com/2009/08/location-location-
location.html).
10. Keeping in mind the earlier point that producer and consumer capitalism really
involve prosumption, even if they stress one dimension or the other.
11. By ‘overcharged’ we mean that consumers paid not only for the costs of
production (and sale) and for a ‘reasonable’ profit for producers, wholesalers, and
retailers, but in many cases far more than that leading to ‘unreasonable’ profits for
all of those involved in the production–consumption chain.
12. This is from a debate between Trebor Sholz and Paul Hartzog from the online
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journal Re-Public’s special issue ‘Towards a Critique of the Social Web’ (Scholz and
Hartzog, 2008).
13. This whole orientation toward the dominance, even encouragement, of
prosumption by capitalism is very different from Toffler’s far more romantic view
in which he saw the prosumer as a solution to some of the problems caused by
the radical distinction between production and consumption in capitalism (and
socialism), as well as by the market more generally (people will have a more
balanced life, be more self-reliant, work less for the market and more for
themselves). In Toffler’s new ‘trans-market’ all sorts of wonders will be possible:
‘New religions will be born.Works of art on hitherto unimagined scale. Fantastic
scientific advances.And, above all, wholly new kinds of social and political
institutions’ (Toffler, 1980: 305).
14. Some restaurants allow prosumers to cook their own meals on sites using
equipment and ingredients provided to them at the site.
15. In order, google.com, maps.google.com, mail.google.com, docs.google.com,
googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html.
16. For instance, MySpace has earned profits, although the profitability of these sites
fluctuates dramatically.
17. It is of interest that Britannica has adopted some amount of user-generated
content. However, they claim that they are not taking on Wikipedia’s all-volunteer
model and the encyclopedia will still be produced and edited by paid content
experts.
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George Ritzer is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, USA.
Among his books in metatheory are Sociology: A Multiple Paradigm Science (1980[1975]) and
Metatheorizing in Sociology (1991). In the application of social theory to the social world, his
books include The McDonaldization of Society (5th edition, 2008), Enchanting a Disenchanted
World (2nd edition 2005), and The Globalization of Nothing (2nd edition, 2007). He was
founding editor of the Journal of Consumer Culture. In conjunction with Nathan Jurgenson
and others, he is editing a special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist on prosumption.
His books have been translated into over 20 languages, with over a dozen translations of The
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McDonaldization of Society alone. Address: Department of Sociology, University of Maryland,
College Park, MD 20742, USA. [email: ritzer@socy.umd.edu]
Nathan Jurgenson is a doctoral student in sociology at the University of Maryland, USA,
where he is working with George Ritzer on the theoretical implications of the bottom-up turn
taken by the internet – what has come to be known as Web 2.0. He received his MA in
sociology from Northern Illinois University, USA in 2007. Address: Department of Sociology,
University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA. [email: njurgenson@socy.umd.edu]
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