From the Feud to the Cloud: Technofeudalism and Control in the Data Society

The consolidation of a new global and digital economy in recent decades has profoundly transformed social, economic and political relations. The rise of large technology corporations, such as Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok, has given rise to a new regime of accumulation based on the control of information and data. This phenomenon gave rise to what Shoshana Zuboff called surveillance capitalism, and other thinkers, such as Yanis Varoufakis and Evgeny Morozov, call technofeudalism.

The term technofeudalism indicates a structure of social domination in which economic and symbolic power comes from digital platforms that act in a similar way to ancient feudal lords: they not only control virtual “lands”, but also exploit the work of others and limit free and quality access to information. The “land” today is the digital space and the “servants” are the users, workers whose activities generate value, but who do not have access to and control over how this value is distributed.

Faced with this situation, the text emerged as a reflection on how technofeudalism is reorganizing wealth, work and power in digital networks, as well as on the ethical, social and political consequences of this new order. The precariousness of working conditions mediated by applications and algorithms is also an identified problem, along with the impacts of digitalization on human beings.

Technofeudalism is, in essence, the extraction, processing and monetization of personal and behavioral data. Zuboff states that digital platforms have transformed human experience into free raw material for surveillance, prediction and manipulation of behavior. Thus, economic value is not only generated by material production, but also by the capture, analysis and predictability of human behavior.

This logic results in an unprecedented concentration of power. Big techs began to control the planet's communication, commerce and information infrastructures, becoming almost sovereign entities. They have the ability to influence elections, shape consumption habits and manipulate emotions on a global scale. For Varoufakis, this is a new digital aristocracy, whose domains are not geographic, but informational.

This power structure recreates the map of social inequality. Wealth is concentrated in corporations that have monopolized access to data and algorithms, while the majority of the population remains dependent on these systems to work, communicate and exist socially. The initial promise of the internet, which was the decentralization and democratization of information, has transformed into a new form of digital servitude.

Work mediated by applications represents one of the most visible faces of technofeudalism. Companies like Uber, iFood and Rappi exemplify the logic of risk externalization and social lack of protection. Under the discourse of autonomy and entrepreneurship, the 21st century worker is subjected to a form of algorithmic control, in which he defines routes, times and earnings, as highlighted by Antonio Casilli and Nick Srnicek.

The platforms transferred to workers the costs and responsibilities previously assumed by the employer, eliminating historically won labor rights. The absence of formal ties and social protection, added to the pressure for productivity and constant availability, creates precarious working conditions on a global scale.

The control exercised by algorithms is impersonal, invisible and totalizing. The worker does not negotiate with a person but with an automated system that permanently evaluates and ranks him. This new dynamic in the work environment generates what Byung-Chul Han calls self-exploitation: the individual believes they are exercising freedom and autonomy, when in fact, they reproduce the system's impositions.

In addition to the economic impact, there is a psychological and existential impact. The logic of performance and constant evaluation erodes free time, self-esteem and the sense of community, becoming a culture of exhaustion and isolation. Work stops being just a means of subsistence and starts to colonize all dimensions of life.

Technofeudalism not only operates on economic structures but also on subjectivity. Digital networks have transformed the way we perceive the body, time and identity. Contemporary human beings live in a state of hyperconnectivity, in which the physical body is integrated with digital interfaces and the “self” is constantly mediated by algorithms.

Byung-Chul Han described this condition as the “transparency society”. A world in which everything is exposed, quantified and shared. Privacy and body are tracked by sensors; transformed into behavioral data and the bits are becoming the substance of social existence. This hyperexposure is eliminating the space of intimacy and otherness, converting the subject into data and data into merchandise.

Platforms, by manipulating desires and emotions, colonize the human experience. What was previously spontaneous and singular, such as gaze, affection and silence, becomes predictable and measurable. Thus, subjectivity is reconfigured according to the parameters of the data market: the value of an individual begins to depend on their algorithmic visibility.

The transformations brought about by technofeudalism configure a new social issue, which goes beyond the boundaries of work and affects the very concept of citizenship. If the 19th century was marked by the fight against industrial exploitation and the 20th by the achievement of social rights, the 21st century faces the challenge of guaranteeing justice and dignity in the age of algorithms.

The regulation of platforms and social networks is an ethical and political imperative. It is necessary to guarantee algorithmic transparency, limit the power of corporations over personal data and create mechanisms for redistributing digital profits. Public data protection policies, such as the General Data Protection Law (LGPD) in Brazil and the GDPR in the European Union, represent important advances, but are still insufficient given the speed of technological transformations imposed by large corporations.

As Evgeny Morozov observes, the challenge is not to reject technology, but to “repoliticize” it, that is, to subject development and use to democratic and human criteria.

The current moment forces us to rethink the very meaning of humanity. In a world where decisions are automated and value is measured by data, it becomes urgent to recover the dimensions that escape quantification: affection, care, uncertainty and also error.

The creative power of humanity has always existed but the current risk is that it becomes a form of domination over man himself. The challenge is to put technology back at the service of life and not the other way around.

Defending human dignity in the digital age means defending the right to opacity, privacy and disconnection. They are spaces of freedom in which humans can exist outside of algorithmic control. It’s about finding the balance between the virtual and the real, digital and analog.

Technofeudalism represents the most recent and complex expression of domination dynamics. By transforming data into a source of profit, it reconstructs power relations and redefines the place of human beings in the production system. The precariousness of working conditions, the concentration of information and the colonization of subjectivity constitute a situation of digital servitude that requires awareness and urgent responses.

Overcoming this model requires regulation, democratic innovation and ethical awareness. Technological progress must serve humanity and the fight for dignity in the age of algorithms is a fight for the preservation of the human in the face of the invisible power machines that govern the present.