What Is Technofeudalism?

A group of Big Data’s critics claims we’re seeing a return to feudal rule.

Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images Imagine a near future in which Amazon begins bidding for municipal sanitation and sewage contracts. The company has developed sensor-ridden trash cans, trucks, and pipes, such that it can generate valuable data from society’s waste. Localities race to embrace these new utilities and their associated cost savings. In such a situation, we might come to feel like mere vassals of the Bezos empire, pissing out more and more information for his eventual profit. This is the vision underlying the technofeudalism thesis, which holds that 21st-cent

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