All work deserves pay, it seems. However, all your life, without knowing it, you work for free for companies. The trick has increased with the internet, so much so that researchers have theorized the trick and called it “digital labor” (or “digital work” if you are allergic to English). Basically, the idea is that, when we are on the internet, we produce value, and this value is captured by companies that do not pay us in exchange. It’s hot huh? We give you some examples of times when we are exploited in spite of ourselves, on the internet and even outside. It will perhaps make you want to make the revolution, or to be an ostrich.
1. When you answer a captcha, you work for Google AIs
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You know when you have to “click on pictures of a bike to prove you’re not a robot”? Well, by doing so, you train Google’s AIs to recognize images better afterwards. Same when you have to copy a word that appears on your screen: in this way, you help Google to scan books by identifying the words that the AI has not managed to decode. Are you paid for this? No way.
2. When you use a self-checkout, you work for the store
Supermarket self-service checkouts turn us all into micro-cashiers. Instead of paying a full-time person to scan customers’ items, the store makes us all work a little, but for free. Suddenly, a person finds himself unemployed, and we are exploited for nothing. It’s good for the store.
3. When you rate a driver on Uber, you work for Uber
So yes, on the one hand, it’s nice to know if the driver who is going to pick us up is not a serial killer, so the rating is rather useful. However, by asking us to put notes, Uber is basing its employee evaluation system on us instead of taking care of it itself with inspectors. As if we had only that to do.
4. When you rate a rental on Airbnb, you work for Airbnb
There, we are not participating in an employee evaluation system, but in a service ranking system. Thanks to our ratings, the Airbnb site is getting better and better because each rental is referenced with ratings and reviews. It is certainly very practical for customers, but above all very profitable for the company. And U.S ? We still haven’t been paid.
5. When you post on social media, you’re working for social media
When we publish a photo on Facebook, we offer free content to Facebook. If we comment on someone else’s post, we value it, so we continue to offer value to Facebook. If we share it, we offer more visibility to Facebook. What if we “only” like the post? We still provide information to Facebook about our tastes. This data, he can reuse them to continue to offer us content that we like. This is obviously valid for all social networks, but Facebook is still the strongest in this little game.
6. When we CONNECT on social networks, we work for social networks
In fact, you don’t even need to like, comment, share or post to work for a social network for free. Just logging on and watching posts already gives the company a whole lot of data. Data that it may use to offer us targeted advertising, for example. In short, whatever happens, we produce value for which we are not remunerated.
7. When you like songs on Spotify, you work for Spotify
Thanks to our musical tastes, Spotify’s algorithm becomes stronger and stronger to offer us new songs (that’s cool), but also to offer them to others. And working for others, we never liked that.
8. When we mention a brand on Instagram, we are working for the brand
The interest of mentioning Nike when you have just bought a pair of Nike sneakers is already highly limited, but it is also silly since it helps to advertise a brand without any consideration. Of course, you can replace “Nike” with any brand that is already deep in its pockets, with or without you.
And if we want to push a little…
9. When you assemble Ikea furniture, you work for Ikea
Can’t they assemble the furniture themselves? We have other things to do than find the B12 screw to put it in the Z4 panel.
10. When you tell a friend about a Netflix series, you work for Netflix
Yeah, it’s free word-of-mouth advertising. And we never received a check after advising our friends to watch Squid Game.
Now you have the choice between working for Topito by commenting on this post, or doing a well-paid job.