The increasing centrality of prosumption in the digital capitalist economy

Prosumption, or the integration of production and consumption, has al- ways been predominant, although thinking about economic activity has been dom- inated in the past by the concept of production (especially after the Industrial Rev- olution) and later by consumption (with the Consumer Revolution after WWII). However, both production and consumption can be thought of as types of prosump- tion involving varying degrees of each. In the digital age it has become increasingly difficult to conceive of a sharp separation between the two, partially due to the intrinsic nature of digital prosumption itself. All acts in that realm involve both pro- duction and consumption. That is particularly the case in what we would ordinarily consider digital consumption where acts of consumption require acts of production. This is a small part of the broader process of the emergence of prosumer capitalism as the major economic form rather than producer or consumer capitalism.