Automating prosumption: The decline of the prosumer and the rise of the prosuming machines

Abstract

This essay builds on and expands the domain of the burgeoning literature on the human prosumer and the process of prosumption. Just as the prosumer and prosumption are finally getting the attention they have always deserved, a dramatic technological change – the rise of smart prosuming machines – is taking place that is reducing the importance of the human prosumer. While the impact of these machines on producers (here conceived of as prosumers-as-producers) has long been obvious, what has changed the most is the explosion, and the growing impact, of these machines on consumers (or prosumers-as-consumers). A number of examples are offered of smart prosuming machines for humans. The latter are often unaware of the prosumption being done by smart machines, especially on the Internet. While smart prosuming machines offer many advantages, the danger lies in the replacement of human by non-human technologies and the control exercised by them. This is especially the case on the Internet of Things where many smart prosuming machines function, interrelate, and operate as autonomous, self-organizing devices.

Keywords

Prosumption prosumer smart prosuming machines production consumption Internet of Things

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Anderson

(2012) Makers: The New Industrial Revolution, New York: Crown.

Ashton K (n.d.) That “Internet of Things” Thing. Available at: http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/print/4986.

Baudrillard

(1970/1998) The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures, London: Sage.

Benjamin

(1999) The Arcades Project, Cambridge, MA: Belknap.

Bilton N (2014) My T-shirt told me to take a chill pill. New York Times, 26 May, p. B5.

Brown

Capdevila

(1999) Perpetuum mobile: Substance, force and the sociology of translation. In: Law

Hassard

(eds) Actor Network Theory and After, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 26–50.

Bruns

(2008) Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage, New York: Peter Lang.

Brynjolfsson

McAfee

(2014) The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies, New York: W.W. Norton.

Callon

(1999) Actor-network theory. In: Law

Hassard

(eds) Actor Network Theory and After, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 181–195.

10.

Chui M, Loffler M and Roberts R (2010) The Internet of Things. Available at: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/high_tech_telecoms_internet/the_internet_of_things.

11.

Davenport

(2014) Big Data at Work: Dispelling Myths, Uncovering the Opportunities, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.

12.

De Groote M (2014) Why the rise of smart machines could terminate jobs. Deseret News, 16 March: 1, 11.

13.

Dujarier M-A (2014) The three sociological types of consumer work. Journal of Consumer Culture. Epub ahead of print 8 April 2014. DOI:10.1177/1469540514528198.

14.

Franklin

(2007) Posthumanism. In: Ritzer

(ed.) The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 3548–3550.

15.

Galbraith

(1958/1984) The Affluent Society, New York: Houghton Mifflin.

16.

Gilbert JG (2014) Report: Apple’s next big IOS update could help track your weight and fitness. Available at: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/the-shape-of-things-to-come-apples-next-big-ios-79881408967.html.

17.

Haraway

(1991) Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, New York and London: Routledge.

18.

Hardart

Diehl

(2002) The Automat: The History, Recipes and Allure of Horn and Hardart’s Masterpiece, New York: Clarkson Potter.

19.

Jurgenson

(2012) When atoms meet bits: Social media, the mobile web and augmented revolution. Future Internet 41: 83–91.

20.

Kelly

III Hamm

(2013) Smart Machines: IBM’s Watson and the Era of Cognitive Computing, New York: Columbia University Press.

21.

Knorr-Cetina

(2007) Postsocial. In: Ritzer

(ed.) The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 3578–3580.

22.

Kortuem

Kawsar

Fitton

(2010) Smart objects as building blocks for the Internet of Things. IEEE Internet Computing 14(1): 44–51.

23.

Law

(1999) After ANT: Complexity, naming and typology. In: Law

Hassard

(eds) Actor Network Theory and After, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 1–14.

24.

Marx

(1867/1967) Capital: A Critique of Political Economy vol. 1.New York: International Publishers.

25.

Oremus W (2014) The first news report on the L.A. earthquake was written by a robot. Available at: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/17/quakebot_los_angeles_times_robot_journalist_writes_article_on_la_earthquake.html.

26.

Ortutay B (2014) Super nerd: Stares a tiny price to pay for trying Google glass. Sarasota Herald Tribune, 15 March, pp. 1D, 3D.

27.

Pew Research Center (2014) The Internet of Things will thrive by 2025. Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/05/14/internet-of-things.

28.

Prahalad

Ramaswamy

(2004) The Future of Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value with Customers, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

29.

Ramaswamy

Ozcan

(2014) The Co-Creation Paradigm, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

30.

Rey PJ (2011) Incidental productivity: Value and social media. Available at: http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/11/17/incidental-productivity-value-and-social-media/.

31.

Rieder

Voss

(2010) The working customer: An emerging new type of consumer. Journal Psychologie des Alltagshandelns [Psychology of Everyday Activity] 3(2): 2–10.

32.

Rifkin J (2014) The rise of anti-capitalism. New York Times Sunday Review, 16 March, p. 4.

33.

Ritzer

(1983) The McDonaldization of society. Journal of American Culture 6: 100–107.

34.

Ritzer

(1993/2013) The McDonaldization of Society, Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.

35.

Ritzer

(2014) Prosumption: Evolution, revolution, or eternal return of the same? Journal of Consumer Culture 14(1): 3–25.

36.

Ritzer G (in press) The “new” world of prosumption: Evolution, “return of the same,” or revolution? Sociological Forum.

37.

Ritzer

Jurgenson

(2010) Production, consumption, prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital prosumer. Journal of Consumer Culture 10: 13–36.

38.

Ritzer

Dean

Jurgenson

(2012) The coming age of the prosumer. American Behavioral Scientist 56: 379–398.

39.

Ritzer

Slater

(2001) Editorial. Journal of Consumer Culture 1: 5–8.

40.

Rosenthal E (2014) Even small medical advances can mean big jumps in bills. New York Times, 6 April, pp. A1, A21–22.

41.

Schudson

(1986) Advertising: The Uneasy Persuasion, New York: Basic Books.

42.

Streitfeld D (2014) Web fiction, serialized and social. New York Times, 24 March, pp. B1, B3.

43.

Taub EA (2014) Smartphones, smartwatches and, now, smart toothbrushes. New York Times, 6, May, p. B7.

44.

Toffler

(1980) The Third Wave, New York: William Morrow & Company.

45.

Vargo

Lusch

(2004) Evolving to a new logic for marketing. Journal of Marketing 68: 1–17.

46.

Veblen

(1914/1964) The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts, New York: Augustus M. Kelly.

47.

Whitmore A, Agarwal A and Xu LD (2014) The Internet of Things – A survey of topics and trends. Information Systems Frontiers. Epub ahead of print 12 March 2014. DOI:10.1007/s10796-014-9489-2.

48.

Zwick

Knott

(2009) Manufacturing customers: The database as new means of production. Journal of Consumer Culture 9: 221–247.