Theorizing the Costs of Self-Service Technologies and Co-Creation by Design

In this commentary we explore how, in a market system that increasingly demands the participation of consumers as co-creators through self-service technologies, these technologies pose significant challenges to various consumers. We call this increase in demand the ‘everyday-ification’ of co-creation and consider its effect on consumers who are either unwilling or unable to co-create value. We look at how marketers are motivated to persistently replace human labor with technologies, not to primarily benefit consumers, but to discipline consumer labor and to maximize profits and shareholder value. Through this lens we examine five key issues with self-service technologies. First, we discuss how costs and benefits associated with self-service technologies are unequally allocated, before addressing how consumers’ choices are managed, consumers’ rising sense of powerlessness and increased vulnerabilities, consumers’ service failure responsibilization, and the cybernetic bureaucracy of life through self-service technologies.