The Digital Rush, along with dire business needs, led the media to two key reversals. First, they flipped from neutral coverage to progressivism. Second, they flipped from covering news for a broader audience to focusing on topics promoted by activists.

The dynamic wasn’t unique: any medium empowers early adopters and imposes their values on society.

Now, after the Axial Decade, once-emancipated authors have become serfs bound to platforms, much like medieval peasants were bound to landlords’ domains.

Platforms exercise “digital biopolitics” in its ultimate form: they allow us to grow our digital bodies, and then they have them.

Monetizing the network effect of leisure is a remarkable late-capitalist twist on surplus value.

Sharing something on a platform also means sharing property rights. This is the platform fee every user pays for access to the network effect. The digital persona we create to benefit from networking belongs to the platform.

The 5th corollary to Metcalfe’s law: the network you benefit from the most owns you. Platforms offer incredible networking services, but by extending and essentially replacing our personal networking capacity, they “naturally” possess the product—our networked digital lives.

The 4th corollary to Metcalfe’s law: the more digital belongings one has on a platform, the harder it is to leave.

The 3rd corollary to Metcalfe’s law: the more benefits a network provides, the more it enslaves users. Three factors lock users in: a platform’s monopolistic aptitude, its habit-forming design, and the fact that users benefit only from the platform they have heavily invested in.