4 Economic Rent

4.1 Digital Rent

Birch

Big Tech ecosystems are important techno-economic sites of new and emerging forms of digital rentiership.

Big Tech is characterized by the emergence of new and specifically digital forms of rentiership, defined as the construction and extraction of value through the techno-economic extension of ownership and/or control over assets, often resulting from some artificial or natural scarcity, quality, or productivity

We outline four emerging forms of digital rentiership in Big Tech ecosystems reflecting the similarities and diversities in Big Tech firms themselves:

1. ‘enclave rents’ created through the control of ecosystems;

2. ‘expected monopoly rents’ created through the performative fulfilment of future narratives;

3. ‘engagement rents’ constituted via rankings and metrics that differentiate users by their engagement with digital services and products; and

4. ‘reflexivity rents’ obtained by exploiting ecosystem rules and norms.

Birch (2021) Big Tech: Four Emerging Forms of Digital Rentiership