Yanis Varoufakis appeared on the Keen On podcast with Andrew Keen to talk about his new book, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism. It is an interesting conversation but I found an answer that Varoufakis gave to be bleak when thinking of how society is structured around these digital platforms. When he speaks of digital fiefdoms, he means platforms like Amazon and Facebook.

Within the digital fiefdoms of the 21st century, you are not even a subject. You are certainly not a citizen but you're not even a subject. You are only a resource and an asset to be stripped by the owner. In other words, you have even fewer rights under technofeudalism that you would have had under feudalism. At least under feudalism you could petition your lord and be heard occasionally. Today, this is simply impossible. You enter one of these digital fiefdoms and the algorithm, on behalf of the owner, is matching you to individuals whether they are sellers or other users in a manner which maximizes the rent extractive capacity of the owner of the algorithm. And that's it. You are not a citizen. You are not a subject. You are little bit like in The Matrix, the movie, humans who had been turned into batteries or solar panels providing energy and heat to the system. In this case, the system being cloud capital.

What killed capitalism? Yanis Varoufakis' murder mystery about the death of capitalism and our descent into "techno feudalism"

I didn't know of Jeff Jarvis until I started listening to This Week in Google. He can be quite strident in his opinions but he provides a valuable perspective when it comes to technology policy and regulation.

I came across an interview he had with Andrew Keen on the Keen On podcast back in May. They go on a tour through Jarvis' history on the internet starting with blogging and moving onto social media.

The story of Jeff walking up from the subway in New York after the first plane hit the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001 was harrowing.

This is around the time that he started blogging. Listening to his description of the importance of blogging in his life, it became easier to see why he's such a staunch defender of allowing people access to new technology.

There are times when I feel he's too dismissive of potential downsides of a new technology. In his defence, there are many examples of moral panics in the past that have turned out to be overblown.

I lean more towards Andrew Keen's side when it comes to the tech industry. I think that the uncritical coverage of the tech industry has been a major problem but I am more aware of the potential downsides of inaccurate regulations can have. When I hear of a negative news report about the technology industry, I stop and say "What would Jeff say about this?".

A useful anecdote is Jeff talking about seeing some of his old newspaper colleagues and how they are surviving in an industry that is shrinking, if not dying. He recounts how he was told he was crazy to leave his job as a columnist with the San Francisco Examiner. Sometimes taking the risk to move to a more uncertain field like the internet was at the time is the right thing to do.