Platform Capitalism

플랫폼 자본주의

A contemporary form of capitalism in which digital platforms serve as the core business model, extracting and controlling data while mediating interactions among multiple user groups to generate profit. Nick Srnicek (2016) classified platforms into five types (advertising, cloud, industrial, product, and lean platforms) and analyzed platform capitalism as capital's response to declining profitability in manufacturing after the 2008 financial crisis, with data becoming a new raw material. Key debates in Marxist political economy center on whether data directly produces surplus value (Terranova's 'free labour' thesis), whether platform profits constitute rent extracted through network monopoly (Fuchs), or whether lean platforms simply perpetuate traditional labor exploitation under a facade of self-employment.