Paper delivered at the British Sociological Association Conference, 10th April, 2018

1. SELF-TRACKING,
PRECARIOUS WORK AND
THE ENERGY CRISIS IN
SEMIOCAPITALISM
ChrisTill
@chrishtill
c.till@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

2. Two
Strategies of
capital
accumulation
“Investor StoryTime”
• Tell a story to create investor confidence
• Driven by “aura of the digital”
“Financialization of everyday life”
• Re-organise social life to make it productive

3. “fundamental social shift from
concerns with physical, tangible
equivalency to an immateriality […]
the illusion of an infinite domain
capable of producing value without
expenditure, coupled with a denial
of physical costs and limited
resources”
“Aura of the digital” –
Michael Betancourt
Investor storytime –
Maciej Cegłowski
“…is when someone pays you to tell them
how rich they’ll get when you finally put
ads on your site […] [It] is not exactly
advertising, but it is related to advertising.
Think of it as an advertising future, or
perhaps the world’s most targeted ad.
Both models involve persuasion. In one of
them, you’re asking millions of listeners to
hand over a little bit of money. In the other,
you’re persuading one or two listeners to
hand over millions of money”

4. Financialization
of everyday life
Adam Arvidsson
• The social logic of the derivative
“is rooted in the financial level of the
economy, and it operates to
reconfigure social relations so that
they become fit for financialization“
(Arvidsson 2016)
• “operates as a way to give value to
the so-called ‘intangible assets’”
(Arvidsson 2016)

5. Uber’s annual losses 2012-16 in millions “Uber has taken $12 billion over 15
rounds of investment, and has a
reported valuation of nearly $70 billion”
Jim Edwards
UK Business Insider
“The minute it was clear to us that
our friends in MountainView were
going to be getting in the ride-
sharing space, we needed to make
sure there is an alternative [self-
driving car],” says Kalanick. “Because
if there is not, we’re not going to
have any business.” Developing an
autonomous vehicle, he adds, “is
basically existential for us.”
Travis Kalanick (former) CEO Uber,
2016

6. 2017 - raised $385m in
funding (total $860m)
valued at $2 bn
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
2015 2016
Deliveroo Revenue and Loss in millions
Revenue Loss
Deliveroo

7. Deliveroo
investor
statement
2017
1. Create its own food offerings, personalised for
customers
2. Half the cost of food for customers
3. Automate delivery
4. Automate food production
5. Double its profit margins
• “Own Content” - strategy
– hyper-personalized food produced by Deliveroo;
– lower price of food;
– create daily use case;
– greater margin due to supply chain savings and
automation’.

8. Financialization
of everyday life
• Deliveroo […] reveals its intention to use artificial
intelligence and robotics to transform its
operations and costs in kitchens as well as
replacing riders to ferry meals to people’s doors.
• AI and robotics will enable Deliveroo to double its
margins from today’s level of 15 percent to a 33
percent.
• In Deliveroo’s vision of the future, restaurants will
be limited to “special occasions” and people will
only cook “as a hobby.”
• It foresees the cost to make food coming down to
£1 per meal, and delivery reduced to £1 per order
too.
“the social logic of the
derivative is rooted in
the financial level of the
economy, and it
operates to reconfigure
social relations so that
they become fit for
financialization“
(Arvidsson 2016)

9. Investor
Storytime
&
Financialization
of everyday life
• Both built on semiotic production and
manipulation
• Automation and personalisation central to
“story”
• Require the production of data by paid and
unpaid digital labourers (eg. Deliveroo
customers and riders)
• “Investor story time” promotes “aura of the
digital” which denies material base of value
production (digital labour)
• Accumulation strategy which underpins
(IST) is one built on increase precarization of
labour

10. Thank You!
@chrishtill