The term was mainly introduced by Shoshana Zuboff in her book "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" [0]. She was describing the way in which organisations harves

The term was mainly introduced by Shoshana Zuboff in her book "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" [0]. She was describing the way in which organisations harvest personal data to fabricate prediction products than can be traded. She isn't saying "if you aren't paying for a product then you are the product". She is saying that our clicks are the raw material from which Surveillance Capitalists create a product they can sell. E.g. Facebook use our interactions and meta data to build a rich social graph, and when an advertiser wants a list of people who meet certain criteria, Facebook can then provide them with a list. This is different to the reasons that governments typically conduct surveillance. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Surveillance_Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Surveillance_Capita...