We like to think we exist in a relatively free world where we have progressed from the ages of medieval structures and constraints. We don’t work in fields for free or have to ask permission to leave certain areas. However, as much as we have moved away from these particular societal structures, we now have a whole new world of governing.
Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google (aka the FAANG) monazite everything we do. Our behaviours on their sites are seen as products and are sold without our awareness. We can be seen as clients for these companies when using their sites. It’s an unequal exchange of information, we scroll through our instagram feeds without much thought whilst they sell our attention for insane amounts of money.
Although our current reality is so vastly different to those working as slaves in the medieval times, the actual structures of social class and living under capitalism still very much remains and it remains in a stronger and more technical form than ever before.
Erin Waugh 
Great blog Erin,
I recently watched “the social dilemma” on Netflix and it was on this topic and so interesting! I mean it kinda sucks for those of us who are feeding the billionaires but until times change what are we gonna do, Right?
They used a quote In the documentary saying something along the lines of “if a product is free, you’re the product” this refers to us as consumers/users using the sites for free and then our information is being sold to companies who wish to collect data to further target us. another interesting thing they said in the documentary was the referral to data being the most important/ value for money thing that you can purchase. after seeing how well these big companies are doing making money off consumers and users I believe this – BIG TIME
I recommend giving it a watch if you haven’t already! I also love your remediation and its reference to the topic, great work!
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Hahahahha I love your remediation, stands true! Such a good post Erin, we are really living in a modern hierarchy scheme.
We are money machines to large corporate companies, all for free. I read an interesting article for this topic about digital feudalism, it uses medieval times to correlate to now. It’s worth the read. Keep up the good work! https://web-strategist.com/blog/2019/09/14/the-rise-of-digital-feudalism-chances-are-youre-a-serf/#:~:text=In%20today's%20modern%20tech%20era,for%20the%20masses%20to%20use.&text=In%20prior%20eras%2C%20they%20had,their%20work%20to%20be%20seen.
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Hey Erin. Great remediation this week, it really made me laugh! You also made some really great points in your blog post, some of which I touched on in my blog post too. My remediation focuses on how the services which you listed above are constantly watching and monitoring us for our data and their money… Absolutely crazy and ridiculous. My remediation focused more on the darker side of things, namely the 1984-esq vibe of it all. In my research, I came across this article on the Atlantic which I think you might find interesting, and honestly, it really made me think… https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/facebooks-failures-and-also-its-problems-leaking-data/578599/
Keep up the great work!
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