Platform power, technology, and law: consumer powerlessness in informational capitalism

ABSTRACT The shift in the political economy from market-based to informational capitalism is wrought by increased use of technology and the adoption of platforms as the dominant networks of transaction. This has led to a concomitant increase in power of the platform entities to exert control over substantial parts of world populations. The platform entities have accrued and exercise this power including through their use of user data, by controlling the discourse and the imaginary surrounding the platforms, and through the affordances of the platforms themselves. Another of the technologies used by the platform entities to gain and entrench power is the law itself. Informational capitalism evolved within a system of existing laws. The way that platform entities have in turn enforced, ignored, and manipulated laws requires us to re-examine the law’s relationship with power. This paper examines theories of power and focuses on Steven Lukes’ radical view of power in three dimensions to help understand that relationship between power, technology, and consumer laws. The paper sets out some of the ways that consumers are manipulated, including through the use of law, in what Lukes describes as the third dimension of power.