Tokens - BookWyrm

English language

Published Sept. 19, 2023 by Verso Books.

ISBN:: 978-1-83976-834-7

(1 review)

Platform capitalism is coming for the money in your pocket

Wherever you look, money is being re-placed by tokens. Digital platforms are issuing new kinds of money-like things: phone credit, shares, gift vouchers, game tokens, customer data—the list goes on. But what does it mean when online platforms become the new banks? What new types of control and discrimination emerge when money is tied to specific apps or actions, politics or identities?

Tokens opens up this new and expanding world. Exploring the history of extra-monetary economies, Rachel O’Dwyer shows that private and grassroots tokens have always haunted the real economy. But as the large tech platforms issue new money-like instruments, tokens are suddenly everywhere. Amazon’s Turk workers are getting paid in gift cards. Online streamers trade in wishlists. Foreign remittances are sent via phone credit. Bitcoin, gift cards, NFTs, customer data, and game tokens are the new money in an …

Platform capitalism is coming for the money in your pocket

Wherever you look, money is being re-placed by tokens. Digital platforms are issuing new kinds of money-like things: phone credit, shares, gift vouchers, game tokens, customer data—the list goes on. But what does it mean when online platforms become the new banks? What new types of control and discrimination emerge when money is tied to specific apps or actions, politics or identities?

Tokens opens up this new and expanding world. Exploring the history of extra-monetary economies, Rachel O’Dwyer shows that private and grassroots tokens have always haunted the real economy. But as the large tech platforms issue new money-like instruments, tokens are suddenly everywhere. Amazon’s Turk workers are getting paid in gift cards. Online streamers trade in wishlists. Foreign remittances are sent via phone credit. Bitcoin, gift cards, NFTs, customer data, and game tokens are the new money in an evolving economy. It is a development challenging the balance of power between online empires and the state. Tokens may offer a flexible even subversive route to compensation. But for the platforms themselves they can be a means of amassing frightening new powers.

An essential read for anyone concerned with digital money, inequality, and the future of the economy.

1 edition

Fionnáin reviewed Tokens by Rachel O'Dwyer

Value reimagined

5 stars

In Tokens, Rachel O'Dwyer tells a story of value through tokens, alternative objects of payment that operate outside of legal currencies. The book blends years of in-depth research with clever use of anecdote and a well considered structure of 9 chapters, each telling a different part of the story.

While the overarching theme of the book deals with contemporary digital technologies such as NFT artworks or video game trading currencies, there is plenty of room given to histories and cultures of tokens than just these recent phenomena. O'Dwyer blends art history, economics, feminist theory and technology to present tokens in everything from subversive economies to hyper-capitalist systems. Brilliantly written throughout, and overloaded with information that is a testament to a long and thoughtful research practice.