Work, Leisure, and Profit

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Do Facebook owners owe users monetary rewards for using the network, popularizing the network, and facilitating profits into their pockets? Is "profit" one-sided? Does using Facebook count as Marxist' notion of 'leisure'? This post will answer the questions by: re-examining Marxist's idea of 'profit' on popular social networking sites like Facebook, and re-defining 'leisure' within the context of capitalism and Facebook use.


Facebook and its Profits
It has been said that advertisers take advantage of the time and free labour users invest in interacting on Facebook to make money. From a Marxist perspective, this is unfair on the user as he or she gains nothing in return. I find this perspective when applied to digital capitalism highly problematic. I say so because the social networking site is not one-sided in its profits. Marx considers profit to solely mean 'money' or anything monetary. I think that for SNS, profit means a 'gain' and the gains of SNS works both ways - Corporates AND users. Some people gain unconscious and conscious profits from using Facebook, so it really depends on personal motivation. Besides the site as a network to find friends and maintain connections, other two non-monetary profits I want to point out that has been discussed in lectures are: Facebook as informing identity, and Facebook as facilitating news-sharing.


I don't want to go in-depth into the theoretical facet of identity, so I will just summarize in a few sentences. Facebook provides its young adolescent users with opportunities to experiment with identities and maybe settle on one. Though identity is a process of "becomings", that is, it's never stable, the site enables these young teens to portray online who they are or who they'd like to be in real-life. This informs the person they eventually construct themselves to be in real-life. The site for them is also a platform for social interaction and esteem boost. My point being, though they popularize the site which monetarily profits advertisers and Facebook developers, these users also gain something that influences their lives in the long run (whether they know it or not).


Concerning the profit of news sharing, journalism has now expanded beyond the television set and the newspapers. People are now active in the production and consumption of news, and this is facilitated on social networks where they can share news with other users. News is now a "social currency" disseminated through social spaces like Facebook. This gift economy is profitable to users as they shape who they are and examine their ideologies around the news they share, while corporates consequently earn monetary profits. To me, it's a win-win situation, only the gain/s or 'profit' differ.


Of course, if you're a stale Facebook user, you need not worry your money is being laundered as you only need to be active on the network before you can blame advertisers for money laundering. Even if we admit they’re making money out of our network use, we are not labouring for free; rather, we’re only paying for the beneficial services they’re providing. These services include: keeping in touch, facilitating social relations and identity negotiations; and sharing news. If Facebook owners decide to start subscription, that to me, is money-laundering. The subscription will be the surplus value where what we gain in return is less than what goes out of our pockets and the amount of labour we exert.


Facebook-use and Leisure
I’m however not completely on the side of Facebook or any other monetarily-profitable social networking site. This is because of the notion of ‘leisure’. I agree with the Frankfurt School theory that leisure is supposed to be a compensation of work but it benefits capitalists and not the individual. In the case of Facebook, I don’t see the site as a place of leisure. We are still using our bodies to produce surplus value. In a way, ‘leisure’ can involve consumption which according to Marx is only encouraging capitalism, as we consume to buy more. However, consumption should be outside of work. If using Facebook during ‘leisure times’ only produces more profit for the capitalists behind the network, then that is not leisure. Though we may gain the three gains I highlight above, we're not partaking in leisure. Leisure should be free of two-sided gain or profit, no matter what 'profit' entails. Using an example from a student in my tutorial, if cleaning the toilet which gives the person a feeling of fulfilment means this reward is productive, at least, there's no monetary value attached to it, thus it is an activity outside capitalistic gains.

Do we have the right to completely "own" our profiles, or is Facebook ultimately the property of its owners? 2) Do users have the agency to ignore or click adverts?