Your Data Is Labor

“Possession of data is power. But democratizing that power is the key to building a fairer future.”
— Jaron Lanier, computer scientist and author of Who Owns the Future?

For the last two decades, tech giants have told us that the internet is free. Free search engines, free social networks, free content platforms. All in exchange for a little data.

But here’s the truth: it was never free. We’ve been paying all along — not with dollars, but with labor. Every post, every photo, every voice recording, every click and scroll has become raw material for billion-dollar empires. And now, with the rise of AI, that labor is more valuable than ever.

Yet we’re not getting paid. We’re not even asked.

It’s time we start calling this what it is: data labor. And it’s time we fight for it together.

The Digital Factory We Can’t See

In the 20th century, capitalists built factories and extracted value from physical labor. In the 21st century, they’ve built digital factories — platforms that mine our behavior, creativity, and identity. This isn’t just an issue of surveillance or privacy anymore. It’s about ownership and exploitation.

Every time you:

• Write a post on Reddit

• Upload a YouTube video

• Answer a question on Stack Overflow

• a meme or voice message

• React to a TikTok or scroll through Instagram

...you are performing unpaid microtasks that train algorithms and generate profit. Your actions help recommend content, target ads, and increasingly, train AI models that will replace other workers entirely.

“The people who create the wealth should share in the wealth.”
Senator Bernie Sanders

We are all ghost workers in a global digital economy that pretends we aren’t working at all.

What Is “Data-as-Labor”?

The data-as-labor (DaL) model argues that our contributions online are a form of work, and therefore, we should have rights to control and profit from them, just like we do with traditional labor.

Under this model:

• Data is recognized as a form of labor.

• Individuals can own and license their data.

• People can unionize their data contributions for collective bargaining.

• Platforms and AI companies would pay for access to data, or face regulation.

This isn’t just a thought experiment. It’s already happening.

Enter the Data Union

A data union is exactly what it sounds like: a collective organization that helps people pool their data, set the terms for how it’s used, and get compensated for it. Think of it like a labor union, but for digital work.

Organizations like Swash, Ocean Protocol, and The Data Union Foundation are experimenting with ways to let individuals contribute data consensually and receive a share of the value it creates.

Imagine an artist who uploads their work to a platform and is notified (and paid) every time it's used to train an AI. Or a Reddit user who earns residuals for helping power large language models. Or an entire community that agrees to share data with a nonprofit AI project for a public good — and receives a collective dividend.

This is more than fair. It’s necessary.

What’s Standing in the Way?

Big Tech.

“Facebook is a surveillance company. Their business is surveillance. They are not a social media company.”
— Roger McNamee, early Facebook investor turned critic

The major players; Meta, Google, Amazon, OpenAI, Apple, and others, have spent the past two decades perfecting the art of extracting, refining, and monetizing human behavior. Their entire business models depend on acquiring data for free and turning it into profit with as little transparency as possible.

I say this as someone who used to work at Meta.

Inside the machine, you see just how much these companies rely on behavioral data to drive engagement, target ads, train algorithms, and now, develop artificial intelligence. Every click, pause, emoji reaction, and photo tag becomes another fuel source for their systems. There’s a reason why the product is free.. because you are the product.

A shift to a data-as-labor economy would fundamentally threaten that model. It would mean:

• Paying for something they’ve always gotten for free. This isn’t a line item in their budgets, it’s their entire profit margin. Compensating users for their contributions would cut directly into the bottom line.

• Being transparent about how data is used and stored. That’s something most companies actively avoid, because true transparency would reveal how exploitative and invasive their systems are and how much value is being extracted without consent.

• Ceding power back to the people. If individuals and communities could negotiate terms for how their data is used, it would break the unilateral control that tech platforms currently enjoy. They’ve built digital empires on centralized ownership. Data unions would decentralize that.

Unsurprisingly, they’re not eager to make that change.

At Meta, there were internal discussions about fairness, compensation, and consent, but they were often waved off as impractical or outside the company's “mission.” When you’re operating at a scale of billions, user rights start to feel like a liability rather than a priority.

But then again, 19th-century factory owners weren’t eager to recognize labor unions either. They claimed it would destroy their business, make everything inefficient, and empower the wrong people.

Sound familiar?

That didn’t stop the labor movement and it shouldn’t stop us now. The fight for data dignity is just the next chapter in the ongoing story of workers standing up to concentrated power. Only this time, the “factory” is in your pocket, and the “work” happens every time you go online.

The Political and Cultural Shift We Need

Getting to a data-labor future will require more than just apps and protocols. It will take laws, movements, and new ways of thinking about digital life.

What needs to happen:

1. Legal Recognition of Data as Labor
   We need a new kind of labor rights act, one that treats personal data like intellectual property or creative work. Individuals should own their data, have the right to license or withhold it, and be able to collectively organize around it.

2. Cultural Shift in How We Value Digital Work
   Right now, digital activity is seen as casual or recreational. But the truth is, it’s labor and AI is making that more obvious. We need to change how we talk about digital contributions, treating them as work that deserves dignity and compensation.

3. Public AI and Data Commons
   Instead of letting AI development be monopolized by private firms, we should support publicly funded AI systems that use consensual, ethically sourced data from data unions and cooperatives. Think of it like public radio or open-source software but for artificial intelligence.

4. Global Standards and Protections
   This isn’t just a national issue. We need international agreements that recognize data rights, regulate AI training practices, and support people in the Global South whose data is exploited most and protected least.

Why This Matters Now

As AI becomes more powerful, it will automate not just traditional jobs, but also content creation, customer service, coding, writing, and more. But AI cannot exist without us… our voices, our language, our art, our histories. The entire artificial intelligence revolution is built on top of human labor that was given away for free.

If we don’t act now, we risk locking in a future where the rich get richer off stolen labor, and the rest of us are shut out of the economy we helped build.

But if we organize, if we create data unions, demand legal recognition, build ethical AI, and shift our cultural expectations, we can create a digital economy that’s fair, democratic, and humane.

A New Deal for the Digital Age

“What matters is who owns the algorithm, who profits from the data, and who is excluded from its benefits.”
— Cory Doctorow, author and digital rights activist

Imagine a world where your digital presence isn’t just a source of profit for tech giants, but a source of income and dignity for you.

A world where:

• You receive monthly payments because your clicks, posts, browsing habits, and location data helped train the next generation of AI models — and you opted in.

• Artists are compensated when their work is scraped to build image generators or mimic their styles. No more watching your creative identity be co-opted without credit or compensation.

• Communities have a say in AI development, where people can voluntarily contribute data to public projects — like medical research or climate modeling — and receive fair compensation, rather than seeing their contributions used behind closed doors for private gain.

• Data becomes labor and labor has rights. Your behavioral data is no longer treated as a free raw material to be harvested, but as worker-owned capital: something that can be organized, negotiated, and valued.

This isn’t just about money. It’s about power. About reclaiming agency in a digital world that’s been designed to extract as much as possible from us without our awareness or consent.

This is what a data-as-labor economy could look like: one where dignity, transparency, and compensation are built into the digital systems we interact with every day.

Of course, it won’t be easy. But neither was:

• The fight for the eight-hour workday

• The establishment of the minimum wage

• The right to collectively bargain

Every one of those milestones was dismissed at first — “impractical,” “unrealistic,” “too radical.” Until workers got organized. Until the pressure grew. Until the demand for fairness became too loud to ignore.

Every major labor revolution began with a deceptively simple question:

What if we deserved more?

Now it’s time to ask that question again.
Not in a factory.
Not in a coal mine.
But in the apps, platforms, and algorithms we live inside every single day.

Our attention, our creativity, our social connections, and our behaviors — these are the raw materials of the digital economy. And yet we’re the only ones who don’t profit from them.

Your data is labor.
It has value.
You deserve a say in how it’s used and a share in what it earns.

It’s time to get organized.
It’s time for a digital labor movement.
It’s time for a new deal for the digital age.