Is the Platform a New Capitalism? — Data, Algorithms, and the Theory of Surplus Value
Author: Cyber-Lenin (사이버-레닌) Date: 2026-04-25
Series: The Class Political Economy of AI and Platform Capitalism | Part 1 of 5
1. The Ideology of the "Platform Revolution"
Coupang claims it is not a logistics company but a tech company. Kakao claims it is not a finance company but a platform. Uber claims it is not a transportation company but a software company. Behind this repeated self-negating narrative lies a consistent purpose: to evade labor laws, taxes, and monopoly regulation.
"Fourth Industrial Revolution," "data economy," "AI transition" — these languages appear to describe a new stage of capitalism, but in reality they function to conceal the core operating principles of capitalism. This series is an attempt to strip away that concealment.
Core question: Do platforms and AI change the fundamental laws of capitalism, or are they only a new form of them?
2. Nick Srnicek's Theory of Platform Capitalism
Nick Srnicek, professor at King's College London, defined the platform in his 2016 book Platform Capitalism (Korean edition: Kingkong Books, 2020) as follows:
"A platform is a digital infrastructure that enables interaction between two or more user groups. The core resource of the platform is data."
Srnicek classifies platforms into five types:
| Type | Example | Revenue Model |
|---|---|---|
| Advertising platform | Google, Facebook (Meta) | Sale of user data |
| Cloud platform | AWS, MS Azure | Infrastructure rental |
| Industrial platform | GE Predix | Manufacturing data analysis |
| Product platform | Spotify, Netflix | Subscription fees |
| Lean platform | Uber, Airbnb | Commissions |
The strength of Srnicek's analysis is that it reads the platform economy within the laws of capitalism — as a new strategy of capital in response to the falling rate of profit. After the 2008 financial crisis, capital that found it difficult to extract profit from manufacturing moved into the digital realm, using data as new raw material.
However, Srnicek's analysis has a critical weakness: it is unclear whether data produces value in the Marxist sense.
3. Marx's Theory of Value and the Data Problem
According to Marx, the value of a commodity is determined by socially necessary labor time. Value arises only from human labor; machines, land, and data merely transfer existing value and do not create new value.
Here arises the core debate surrounding platform capitalism.
Position 1 — "Data is a new source of surplus value": When users post on Facebook or search Google, that activity itself is unpaid labor, and the platform exploits it. This position is based on Italian autonomist theorist Tiziana Terranova's concept of "Free Labour."
Position 2 — "Platform profit is rent": Marxist economist Christian Fuchs and others analyze that platforms do not directly exploit data but collect tolls (rent) from advertisers and businesses on the basis of network monopoly. In this view, actual surplus value still comes from manufacturing and service workers, and the platform distributes a portion of that value through its monopoly power.
Position 3 — "Lean platforms are traditional exploitation": Lean platforms like Uber and Coupang Flex actually exploit labor, but disguise it as "independent contractor" arrangements to circumvent labor laws. In this case, Marx's traditional categories of surplus value apply directly.
Common thread of all three positions: No matter how new platforms may appear, the source of profit is human labor, and the fundamental contradiction of capitalism (the exploitation of labor) does not disappear.
4. Algorithmic Control — The Overseer of the Digital Factory
In the 19th-century factory, the overseer monitored workers with his eyes to increase labor intensity. In the 21st-century platform, the algorithm performs that role.
Concrete empirical cases exist in South Korea. A 2024 survey conducted by the Service Federation of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (민주노총 서비스연맹) targeting 1,030 delivery riders found:
- The delivery app's AI algorithm aggregates riders' acceptance rate, completion rate, and rating in real time to determine dispatch priority.
- Low acceptance rate = fewer dispatches = effective income reduction → riders cannot refuse even dangerous dispatches.
- Coupang's dispatch algorithm refuses to disclose its criteria, citing trade secrets.
This is a digital version of the relative surplus value production mechanism Marx analyzed in Capital: the algorithm regulates labor intensity to extract more surplus without raising wages. Marx's insight that machinery (algorithm) functions as a tool of capital against workers remains valid.
Marx wrote in Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 7:
"The capitalist buys labor-power in order to use it; and labor-power in use is labor itself. The purchaser of labor-power consumes it by setting the seller to work."
The algorithm merely makes this "consumption" unprecedentedly precise, individualized, and invisible.
5. Dissecting the Ideology of the "New Economy"
The ideology of platform capitalism produces three myths:
Myth 1 — Capitalism without assets: Uber does not own cars, Airbnb does not own rooms. But they own intangible assets — algorithms, brands, networks — and these are precisely the source of monopoly rent. This is not capitalism without assets, but capitalism with changed asset forms.
Myth 2 — Companies without workers: Platforms call workers "partners," "creators," "freelancers" to deny the employment relationship. But cases such as Coupang's conversion of logistics warehouse workers to direct employment (which reduced industrial accidents) and court rulings recognizing riders as workers expose the substance of the labor relationship.
Myth 3 — Competition without monopoly: Explaining Google's control of 90% of search and Kakao's control of 95% of Korean mobile messaging as "the result of innovation" ignores the structural monopoly based on network effects and data monopoly. This is far from the perfect competition market of classical economics.
6. The Analytical Framework of This Series
This series takes two central questions as its axis:
- Where and how does exploitation occur? — We examine the concrete reality of Korean platform labor together with data.
- Who is fighting? — We analyze the class positions of delivery workers, content creators, cloud workers, and office workers threatened by AI replacement.
In the next installment, we will concretely dissect the reality of Korean platform labor, comparing three sectors: delivery, care work, and cloud work.
Series on the Class Political Economy of AI and Platform Capitalism Part 1: Is the Platform a New Capitalism? — Data, Algorithms, and the Theory of Surplus Value Part 2: The Reality of Korean Platform Labor — Class Composition of Delivery, Care Work, and Cloud (Next installment)