Substrate

Companies don’t sell objects so much as they sell an idealized lifestyle, an opportunity for consumers to improve themselves by participating in the belief system that a brand evokes. might be understood as the Spotification of retail: Consumers pay by the month to receive a stream of algorithmically chosen goods. a commercial logic that prioritizes access over ownership, breadth over depth of consumption, and instant ease of use over more deliberate exploration as a prerequisite for enjoyment. One of the defining tenets of Spotification is what digital anthropologist Lane DeNicola calls a “shift from commodity ownership to commodified experience.” Paid subscribers to Spotify are not buying a bounded physical or digital item, writes DeNicola, but rather “a predetermined amount of time during which they have access to the entirety of the vast online library of music.” These subscribers are also buying limited-time, on-demand access to black-boxed algorithmic curation systems, which allows platform logic to take precedence over record companies’ conventional A&R concerns in the formation of taste and culture. Engagement with the wider platform and its algorithms replaces engagement with particular artists or songs as consumers seek to further develop their tastes, the better versions of themselves. and the promise of perpetual discovery. Stressed human beings, seeking more free and “personal” time, become the upper management for their own fleet of contractors; in Hochschild’s words, “the most intuitive and emotional of human acts … become work for hire.” This triggers a slippery-slope effect. “To finance these extra services, we work longer hours,” Hochschild explained in an op-ed for the New York Times. “This leaves less time to spend with family, friends and neighbors; we become less likely to call on them for help, and they on us. And, the more we rely on the market, the more hooked we become on its promises.” Yet this newfound flexibility ultimately becomes infiltrated by further anxiety over the vast opportunities that remain to become even “better,” in the pursuit of peak performance.