Matt Webb has an interesting post looking at the sale of Instagram to Facebook through the eyes of an aspect of Marx, particularly this quote from this very good article about Marx by John Lanchester in the London Review of Books: This idea of labour being hidden in things, and the value of things arising from the labour congealed inside them, is an unexpectedly powerful explanatory tool in the digital world. Matt applies this to Instagram: What is the labour encoded in Instagram? It’s easy to see. Every “user” of Instagram is a worker. There are some people who produce photos — this is valuable, it means there is something for people to look it. There are some people who only produce comments or “likes,” the virtual society equivalent of apes picking lice off other apes. This is valuable, because people like recognition and are more likely to produce photos.