Cloud capitalism and the rise of scalable digital assets

Abstract

This article conceptualizes the nature, form, and organization of digital assets–the algorithms, data, and computing infrastructure used by capitalist firms toward various ends. Historically, creating or using machines has involved long-term fixed investments and fixed organizational practices of asset use. This article argues that the rise of Big Cloud introduces hyper-flexibility in the domain of assets and upends this source of fixity for the rest of the capitalist economy. Scalable digital assets act as a fix to various firm-level constraints and rigidities. The discussion is organized around three core questions. 1) What is distinctive about digital assets? 2) How is this asset regime structured? 3) What are the impacts of this scalable asset regime? The point is this: scalable digital assets leased from Big Cloud signal the potential liquification of fixed capital relations. This threatens to undo an important mechanism of stabilization, equally intensifying volatilities, and activating new tensions. Instability and flux thus become the defining features of “cloud capitalism.”.