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The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
- The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella
- Length: 24 hrs and 16 mins
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The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
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Publisher's Summary
The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism", and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior.
In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the 21st century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the 20th. Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new "behavioral futures markets", where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification". The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a "Big Other" operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to 21st-century society: a controlled "hive" of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit—at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future. With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future—if we let it.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Critic Reviews
"I will make a guarantee: Assuming we survive to tell the tale, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism has a high probability of joining the likes Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and Max Weber's Economy and Society as defining social-economics texts of modern times. It is not a 'quick read'; it is to be savored and re-read and discussed with colleagues and friends. No zippy one-liners from me, except to almost literally beg you to read/ingest this book." (Tom Peters, coauthor of In Search of Excellence)
"My mind is blown on every page by the depth of Shoshana's research, the breadth of her knowledge, the rigor of her intellect, and finally by the power of her arguments. I'm not sure we can end the age of surveillance capitalism without her help, and that's why I believe this is the most important book of our time." (Doc Searls, author of The Intention Economy, editor in chief, Linux Journal)
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What listeners say about The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Avinash Tavares
- 28-07-22
must read
everyone must read this book. it is well researched and almost nothing can be disputed. if we allow surveillance capitalism to dominate our lives, future generations are going to ask us, why didn't you'll read this book?.…everything that has happened was written in it
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Aravindan Umashankar
- 16-09-21
The Age AI needs the Humane
Brilliantly researched and compelling arguments presented makes us wonder as to how quickly we succumbed to the numbing servitude.
Yet, there are enough and more pointers in this richly punctuated text book of the state of the tech world, the greed of the pioneers and the vicissitudes of human nature and our susceptibility for free whilst forfeiting freedom
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Sundar
- 02-03-21
Great read
Great and moving thoughts on the future of digital and what each of us can ponder and act.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kinmin
- 28-04-20
every social media user should read this
This is a book that every social media user or non users should read. This books just makes you realised that you are being watched all the time. this is a wonderful book. A book both for academics and general public.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Todd B
- 14-07-19
Book Editors failed to trim the word count
A great topic, with a author that can explain it well ....making a convincing argument for regulation of corporate and goverment use of citizens personal data. However, the book editors were asleep at the wheel esecially in the second half of the book where the editors must have just thrown in the towel and moved on to the next book ..... I can not imagine how excesssively wordy this book was before the final edit?? ..... this is a 6 hour story .... that wanders aimlessely between excess and irrelevant details while trying to make a very concise point.
It reads like the book was written by an author who has spent a career in academia and government, written like she felt that she was preaching from a pulpit of what she believes will be the legistlative bible on consumer data of the modern economy ..... she even invents some of her own proprietary phrases ....with little regard for reader's time, not many business readers will finish this 24 hour sermon ..... 18 hours of dramatic soap box preaching and excess detail around its 6 hours of unbiased actionable information.
By the end of book you will want to strangle Shoshana each time you hear the narrator drone on with:
1. ubiquitous
2. modernity
3. instrumentarian
4. conceptual
5. who decides-who decides
6. unprecendented
7. dispossession
8. personal autonomy
9. inalienable right to the future tense
10. survelliance capitalists
11. neoliberal
12. collectivist orientation
13. facsist
14. any and all
15. human freedom
16. hierarchical complexities
17. radical indifference
18 organism among organisms
19. radical indifference
20. data surplus
21. existential
22. equivalance without equality
92 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Steve
- 28-04-19
One of the most important books of the decade
I don't think it's hyperbole to say that this is one of the most important books in recent years. It lays out the case for a brand new type of capitalism that we are simply not equipped to grasp the short term, and long term, consequences of, and that affects us all in profound ways. And that's why I gave it 5 stars. However, that recommendation comes with a huge caveat. The author seems to take joy in writing in a style that seems more apt for a doctoral thesis in psychology. A book written by an Ivy League professor for other Ivy League professors. This verbiage is wholly unnecessary and borders on obnoxious.
Take for example a sentence like this: "This mental and emotional milieu appears to produce a virus of insecurity and anxiety that drives a young person deeper into this closed loop of escalating compulsion as he or she chases relief in longed-for signals of valorization."
Or how about this sentence: "It is a form of observation without witness that yields the obverse of an intimate violent political religion and bears an utterly different signature of havoc: the remote and abstracted contempt of impenetrably complex systems and the interests that author them, carrying individuals on a fast-moving current to the fulfillment of others’ ends."
Make no mistake. This book is remarkably researched and thorough. The points it makes are exceedingly compelling and it contains information that everyone in this age needs to know. However, this book needs a complete re-write by someone more capable of communicating with a more broad audience. One shouldn't have to fight thought the unnecessarily complex sentence structures and pedantic language in order to digest the amazingly necessary message this book tells.
77 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Brad
- 08-02-19
A MUST, NOT TO BE MISSED
Something wicked indeed has come this way, and is upon us now. Dubbed early on "The Information Age"; the appellation is woefully insufficient. For it is glaringly clear that we are well into the transition from occupying nation states (in which our social contracts as governed populations had long been between civil governments -- varied in kind, but with the one common feature of thriving entirely on human agency) to occupying corporate states. That is, it is not too soon to say we no longer populate nations but vast ruling corporations.
The singular, most curious and even frightening thing to consider is that to the degree we arrived at this predicament, we did so willingly. We did so under no other pressure than our own acquiescence. We did so not from ignorance of what was happening -- for this book is proof of that -- but from, if anything, a mass gaslighting. Thus, with all the facts before us, we chose the road called convenience rather than the road called liberty; and that, as the poet once wrote, made all the difference.
62 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- pk
- 04-04-19
The intersection of ethics, capitalism, and tech
First, I love to read about ethics issues in technology; so, it may not be immediately apparent that one would be getting a good dose within this title. I was enamored from the beginning of how colorful this author was in producing a tangible and practical view of surveillance capitalism. This is a concept I've heard very little about outside of the security sector. To have the correlation made with other sociological concepts that I hadn't really thought about stretched me! This book was fantastic at opening up and investigating the implications of surveillance with the majority of consumers not truly comprehending and understanding the cost.
Now, I would be remiss if I didn't also mention that the author goes on, repeatedly and at length, to address the same points multiple times. It was really hard to extract the take-away points at the mid-point of this book because of how often the author hits the same points, using the same language, and the same frustration toward the abuses. If you are not a reader that likes to "work" to obtain the gold nuggets of wisdom, then this is not the book for you. At times, I found myself cursing in traffic because the author repeats herself too much. I have the impression that this author created this book intending that each chapter should be able to stand on it's own. The unifying themes are very evident; so, repeatedly hitting the drum of disdain became painful after the first 8hrs. The editor should have reigned it in!
The last point I should make is that there are probably more than 30 important topics for consideration in this book. All of them are worthy of your clock cycles to consider, understand, and discuss with your friends and family. When coupled with some of the other topics I like to read, such as artificial intelligence, I am at no shortage of discussion points to appreciate with a mint julep, a cigar, and a friend on the porch for at least 2 summers....but, I'll do it without my phone, or sensors of any type, nearby.
35 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Amy B.
- 22-04-19
Good information - way too verbose
This book has so much good information, but it really needs a good editor. There was way too much repetition and the episodic flowery prose was distracting. This book is good, but it needs to be shorter and less of a burden to listen to.
30 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Al
- 28-05-19
Horrendously Rhetorical
The basic ideas in this are interesting, but the author writes with such thick rhetoric from a specific ideological position that she makes those ideas unnecessarily overcomplicated. It comes across as an author writing more for herself and glorification of her own intellectualism than as someone attempting to communicate an idea. Terrible.
27 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- spores
- 13-07-19
Very important topic but poorly constructed
This book discusses an incredibly important but often under-discussed topic. However, the importance of the topic and the message itself gets lost by the seeming insecurity of the writer. This book seems to be intently written to make the author sound overly intelligent and erudite. Instead of using common language and prose the author drones on with long-winded sentences and obscure phrases that are highly unnecessary. I would love to see this book rewritten by someone who is interested in conveying a reasonable message and not interested in overcompensating...
24 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- D. Sooley
- 22-04-19
Another tech book 3X longer than it needs to be
I don't get why these tech writers keep pumping out these insanely redundant and long-winded, repetitive tomes.
I am guessing the words "ubiquitous" and "ubiquity" are used a FEW THOUSAND times in this painfully long and redundant (book?)
The information in this book could have been condensed to a handful of chapters. Instead, you get this inane, redundant, drawn out horse-beating of the data. I mean, c'mon...after hitting the point once or twice, there is no need to hit it another dozen times.
There is also a strained (IMJ) effort to use a vocabulary well beyond that of probably most of the listeners.I happen to have a strong vocab, so I didn't have to hit a dictionary....but I wonder how many people heard the language and just went, huh?
As an English teacher I once had said: An extraordinarily futile effort to expostulate on the profundities of euphoria in a piecemeal vernacular which can only be characterized as rhinestone rhetoric.
The other takeaway? We are all just hapless rhesus monkeys, clicking on our screen while big brother trains us to "behave" exactly like they want us to. WTF? The whole "behavior modification" treatise is just downright ridiculous. We are a collective of mindless consumers, with our behaviors being driven by dancing pixels? Now, where is that banana?
I would personally pass on this one if you are considering. Something that could have been done in a meme will take you 25 hours of deeply painful listening. Department of redundancy department.
22 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
- KYLE KNOLL
- 15-03-19
Takes too much time to communicate simple points
I really tried hard hard to get into this book, but the author uses way too many words to communicate somewhat simple points. If you are looking to kill some time and like hearing an author ramble on using as many big words as possible, then this book is for you. I couldn't take it anymore and returned it.
19 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Eric
- 18-04-19
This should be required reading
While this book seems almost excessively long, I feel the information is soo important for the times we live in. The way data is being collected and sold with no one held accountable is disheartening to say the least. If we do nothing to stop it we are basically giving up our freedom to choose and even our rights as we become a sum of data collected defining who we are to the powers that be. They can then use the data to manipulate our behavior or deny certain privileges. I don't like living in fear but this book can cause paranoia knowing the current truth. I hope enough people learn this information and we can turn technology into a positive tool instead of a tool used to spy and manipulate.
17 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Apple Smith
- 26-04-19
Had so badly wanted to like it
My being fresh from lapping up Yuval Noah Harari’s gripping trilogy (read by the engaging Derek Perkins), I was keen to dig deeper into similar writings on the seeming inevitability of capitalism and its effect on modern society.
Following the recommendations of friends, the London Review of Books, and Audible itself, I searched for Zuboff’s book. The audio sample sounded good and I was confident of a rewarding purchase.
Regrettably the writing is much heavier going than the sample suggests (peppered with hifalutin terms & unhelpfully pretentious metaphors) and, each time I try to pick it up again, Zanzarella’s vocal performance leaves me *exhausted* after just ten minutes. Finishing it has been a labour of love: the overall presentation feels oppressively self-conscious, thanks to a combination of overly earnest Writing with overly earnest Reading.
Meticulously researched & timed, but sadly scuppered by its poor delivery as compared with that of similar productions like Harari-Perkins & Piketty-Ganser, or some of my favourite readers (Joanna David, Ruth Golding, etc).
23 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mr E.
- 25-10-19
Great, important and meticulously crafted book.
I nearly didn’t read/listen to this because reviews suggested it was too long, poorly narrated and overly wordy and dense..... However I am glad that I ignored the negative reviews which I believe are totally unfounded (apart from the narration - but see final paragraph below re this). It is an extraordinary work and v timely.
From amid the fog of a new and sinisterly intangible assault on human values Zuboff calls out the villains and their activities and challenges us to wake up to what is at stake. I think this is a must read and a call to action for anyone who cares about the freedom of the individual and the fundamental sanctity of lived experience uncollated by ‘big other’.
One small but significant detail ..... I listened to it on 2x speed which simultaneously halved the listening time and solved the excessively ponderous narration. Normally I do 1.75x but in this case 2x was perfect. (Hence 3 stars for performance).
10 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Stefan
- 06-10-19
Good, but not great for audiobook
while an interesting book, it doesn't do well as an audiobook. it's much too heavy to read, and doesn't easily carry between listening sessions.
7 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Fipzee
- 28-03-20
Misses the point by being overly one sided
A book that should be important, with important points and information but one whose generalisations and failure to properly examine the counter arguments weakened the strength of the argument ultimately leaving me frustrated. That’s a pity because I have concerns about data privacy and misuse.
Some examples of issues with the book:
- The author criticises the shift from privacy to security but doesn’t assess the merits of that choice or necessity of that path
- In criticising share structures that in the end allow founders to simply maximise return while staying in control but fails to acknowledge shareholders don’t simply have to trust the likes of Zuckerberg. They can invest elsewhere. Different share classes are not new.
- In the case of Google the author pretty much acknowledges they stumbled across a way to avoid going out of business. If the central point of this book is that companies are using our own behaviour to manipulate us then shouldn’t the tobacco, gambling and pizza delivery businesses all be shut down tomorrow? Businesses will always service a need and good government will ensure regulation is in place to ensure that the ability and manner of that delivery is in the interests of society. A challenge with surveillance capitalism is that a lot of it works really well. Most of us wish to avoid ads that aren’t relevant and welcome those that draw our attention to something we really want/need (and sometimes didn’t know)
- Dismisses claims of economic benefits by Google as wishful thinking without investigation.
- Points out the degree of lobbying and resistance to comply with authorities without contextualising that with historical behaviour of other firms that could strengthen the arguments e.g. tobacco companies.
- Labelling SaaS as surveillance as a service. In my experience with business related software this is simply untrue. Does it mean there are not bad players out there? No, but making these generalisations and not backing them up weakens the author’s credibility and argument.
4 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Daniel
- 29-12-20
Flipping awful
Took this on a recommendation and I must say I am sorely disappointed. Didn’t get far but that was enough. Why use five words when you can use five pages. Why use simple straight forward language when you can overly complicate things? This is the general tone of the book. I realise that I’m the unusual one as most people love it judging by the reviews.
3 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Stu
- 30-09-19
Interesting but inaccessible
A highly regarded text by a highly regarded author. Key insights are in here, but it's submerged in a dense, self-indulgent academic style that's quite hard to get through. The narration was a 'nails down a blackboard' experience for me. Two attempts to get into this book and I gave up.
3 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Andrew
- 30-06-19
Fascinating and terrifying, but robotic performance and very long.
Very thorough, and thought provoking, it changed my view of how and why we use the internet. It uses complex language at times, I felt I couldn’t be distracted while listening to it. Performance is very dry.
3 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- ayman
- 14-05-19
Good points but sooooo long book
I understand the point the author wants to make and the effort made but the book could be summarized and shorten to half
3 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Christopher Dsouza
- 26-09-19
Hard work to get through.
Wanted to hear what she had to say and there are a few good points here, but you have to wade through a lot of waffle to get to them. A good editor would have cut 50% of this book out and made it clearer as a result.
A patient reader may get through it, more will give up or skip through chapters. Pity.
At the start she attempts to justify a hybrid “prose” style, but I think she may have gone too far.
2 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- 38Red
- 05-03-21
You'll soon lose the will to live
Anguished and overwrought. Truly desperate prose. 24 hours to cover about 24 minutes of content.
1 person found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 10-10-22
just woffle
just quantitative woffle. was hoping for facts not somebody's opinion. if that's what you want then I guess it could be good.
1 person found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 27-01-21
Challenging for the wrong reasons
At over 24 hours long, this is a meandering, rather unfocused journey. One I couldn't complete. Unfortunately this book is overly self-reflexive and self-indulgent, contains a high degree of subjectivity without much evidence or expounding to back it up. Trying hard to craft a polemic, the author gets lost in exposition and 'thesis creep'. It could easily be one third of its length. For me, the pseudo-academic style overshadows any salience.
Unfortunately the narration doesn't help. Any mildly technical term is pronounced with the kind of inflection and over-emphasis that denotes the narrator is not familiar with the issues they are talking about.
Not what I was expecting. Possibly enlightening for less technically aware listeners.
1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 21-01-22
Outstanding insights into Big Tech
I thought I had a reasonable understanding of the invasion of our privacy by social media! Well this was a shock to me.
I have replaced my iPhone with a Nokia dumb phone that is not linked to the internet and is used for phone calls only.
I am not on social media other than YouTube, which will still expose me to the behavioural theft.
A must read for everyone who believes in individual freedoms!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 22-02-21
Eye opening and shocking.
Every person who wants to retain their free will should take heed of this book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- David
- 16-01-21
Best book of the year
The book explained something I didn't really understand before. It brings clarity to life. Well written, well read.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 10-01-21
The more you know
A thoroughly researched and well presented audio book that offers insight into practices affecting most people on a daily basis. This book seeks to ask questions of companies and practices which are such an awesome part of the digital life of it's users, reminding people these practices are new and very different to how life has been lived in the past. It does take some time to work through and I found I did have to be I the mood to listen. I appreciate and commend the author Shoshana Zuboff's commitment to creating the work which attempts to educate listeners/readers of their part in the practice which is surveillance capitalism.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 05-11-20
Eye opening
Absolutely brilliant. Both terrifying and inspiring. Illuminates clearly how social media companies manipulate us in their relentless pursuit of profit.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Stephen Khalek
- 25-10-20
Futurists meet realists
An informative perspective of the prevelance of Big Other and our ability to adapt as a society to the challenger to the traditional capitalistic and democratic forms
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Alessio
- 30-07-20
Ambitious, overwhelming, and ever more essential
Zuboff tackles some of the biggest questions of our time: “Who knows? Who decides? Who decides who decides?”
This book is an ambitious and essential examination of a new form of power, surveillance capitalism, and its impact on the individual and society. Deeply introspective, it examines the virtuous and vicious cycle of data gathering, processing, and implementation in the mass influence of behaviour.
The book is dense, and sometimes overwhelming. It presents substantive philosophical, subjective, political and sociological perspectives on the impact of hyper scale tech companies on the world. It is not a cost/benefit analysis of these entities, but rather a deep examination of their nature and impact.
For anyone struggling to come to terms with the bigger meaning of social media, targeted advertising, big data, power and democracy and their interlink, this is a thoughtful and compelling piece to explore. For everyone else, it’s essential reading.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 20-04-20
Really hard listening
This book was a lost opportunity to get an important message communicated effectively. Written by an academic it was heavy on obtuse terminology. Not a book for anyone wanting surveillance capital reported in layman’s terms. Invest your time wisely and do some research before purchasing this book.