Maroš Krivý, “We Are All Platform Urbanists, But Not All in the Same Way,” Mediapolis 4, 3 (2018).
The recent joint campaign of Apple and Vitality Insurance in the UK reveals this in a tangible way. Customers, or rather users, can purchase the latest Apple Watch for a heavily discounted price if they “stay active”. Monthly payment levels reflect how many so-called Vitality points customers earn, and they are reduced to zero if customers make 250,000 steps or burn six million calories in a month. The Apple Watch, with its attendant infrastructures of treadmills and data, bodies and motivation, functions here as a platform normalizing the shift from collectively provided welfare to individually managed well-being, and is paid for by the users’ data.
(my response to the roundtable on “platform urbanism,” organized by Scott Rodgers and Susan Moore)
The recent joint campaign of Apple and Vitality Insurance in the UK reveals this in a tangible way. Customers, or rather users, can purchase the latest Apple Watch for a heavily discounted price if they “stay active”. Monthly payment levels reflect how many so-called Vitality points customers earn, and they are reduced to zero if customers make 250,000 steps or burn six million calories in a month. The Apple Watch, with its attendant infrastructures of treadmills and data, bodies and motivation, functions here as a platform normalizing the shift from collectively provided welfare to individually managed well-being, and is paid for by the users’ data.
(my response to the roundtable on “platform urbanism,” organized by Scott Rodgers and Susan Moore)