You are where you go, the commodification of daily life through ‘location’
基于对移动应用设计师和开发者的访谈，本文揭示了‘位置’如何被构建为一种数字商品，并成为资本主义将日常生活进一步卷入剥削过程的关键手段。
Recent years have seen an explosion in the investment into and valuation of mobile spatial applications. With multiple applications currently valued at well over one billion U.S. dollars, mobile spatial applications and the data they generate have come to play an increasingly significant role in the function of late capitalism. Empirically based upon a series of interviews conducted with mobile application designers and developers, this article details the creation of a digital commodity termed ‘location.’ ‘Location’ is developed through three discursive poles: Its storing of space and time as digital data object manipulable by code, its spatial and temporal immediacy, and its ability to ‘add value’ or ‘tell a story’ to both end-users and marketers. As a commodity it represents the sum total of targeted marking information, including credit profiles, purchase history, and a host of other information available through data mining or sensor information, combined with temporal immediacy, physical location, and user intent. ‘Location’ is demonstrated to exist as a commodity from its very inception and, as such, to be a key means through which everyday life is further entangled with processes of capitalist exploitation.