On the Value of "Specific Content"

Mark Zuckerberg said something about value, and now we have to talk about it

Editor’s Note: Hi! I don’t plan to publish on the weekends, as a rule. But I saw this thing on The Bad Website, and then I wrote about it, and now here you are, reading it. I want to write an essay about the concepts of “timely” vs. “timeless” content, and this would be an example in the “timely” category. Sometimes you just see a thing, and you have to post about it.

Something that I’m learning about this style of writing is that it demands extreme confidence. Tech journalists like the ones I admire and am LARPing as here have to take aim and shoot their shot and trust that it will go through the net, often multiple times per day. I am not as confident about the tension between AI’s potential and creators’ rights as I might seem here. I’m just trying a thing. KP

And he was doing so well, too. 

This week, after what I have to imagine was a blissful streak of positive and/or no press, Mark Zuckerberg was doing an interview with The Verge’s Alex Heath when he uttered a statement that, if the gods are just, will send him scurrying back into a Meta campus war room for at least a little bit. 

The topic was data scraping and training for AI models, and some of the concerns creators of various kinds have raised about copyright and their work being used without their consent. Quothe Zuckerberg: 

“I think individual creators or publishers tend to overestimate the value of their specific content in the grand scheme of this.”

This isn’t the first time one of our modern Prometheuses have highlighted concerns about AI’s bottom line. OpenAI has also gone on record saying that if they had to pay for the content they train their models on, they wouldn’t be able to turn a profit. It sure seems the companies behind these models really don’t want to have to pay for resources… but then again, what else is new. 

This isn’t the first time Zuckerberg has found himself at odds with the interests of the creators who fuel his platform, either. But his statement does reveal a deeper dismissal of what individual creators bring to the table. It exposes a tension that has quietly been building as AI models increasingly scrape the internet to fuel their data: the tension between the corporation’s boundless appetite for profit and the individual creator’s right to ownership, recognition, and self-determination. 

But as the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun, and Mark Zuckerberg’s statement isn’t new either. It’s just the latest step in a tango that has been going on for a long, long time. 

A “back-of-the-napkin” estimate

So since the P&L of it is so important to Mark and Co, let’s break it down: Meta operates with a vast amount of user-generated data, from Facebook posts and Instagram captions to WhatsApp messages and marketplace listings. Presumably, all of this user-generated content will go into fueling Meta’s AI training efforts, improving algorithms, and enabling Meta to refine its products. 

For the sake of argument, let's imagine a conservative estimate: if each piece of content—from a simple comment to a lengthy blog post—adds incremental value to the development of AI models, even assigning a fraction of a cent per interaction scales dramatically. Let’s assume Meta needs billions of data points to train a language model. If each user-generated post or interaction contributes $0.0001 in value to the model’s development, multiply that by the billions of interactions on Meta’s platforms each day. Even at this minuscule per-unit value, Meta would be extracting millions in raw input value from its users over time.

What becomes clear in this thought experiment is that, while each individual piece of content may seem trivial on its own, together they represent an invaluable reservoir of data that no algorithm could function without. So while Zuckerberg may be right in the narrow sense that any single piece of content doesn’t shift the needle significantly—in aggregate, user-generated content is what makes AI like Meta’s large language models possible.

So one way to interpret Zuck’s words is that it’s typical corporate gaslighting. He knows he needs creators’ content, so he falls back on the tactic that has proven to be so reliable over centuries of industrial capitalism: he dismisses the value of labor with one hand while reaping its benefits with the other. This isn't just about downplaying individual contributions; it's a well-worn strategy to minimize compensation and control the narrative around intellectual property and ownership. By positioning creators as overestimating their worth, Zuckerberg is laying the groundwork to continue harvesting data without proper compensation or recognition.

What is “value” anyway? 

And let's not let Zuckerberg proclaim himself emperor over determining what has "value." Any sophomore philosophy major will tell you that “value” isn’t simply measured by profit margins or algorithms.​​ It’s a deeply human concept, one that can be subjective, communal, emotional, and often, entirely detached from financial gain. A creator’s work isn’t just data points that can be mined for AI training; it’s their voice, their perspective, their lived experience distilled into something they created in order to offer to the world. 

Zuckerberg’s narrow, capitalist lens overlooks the many forms of value that art and creative work generate. For starters, there’s personal value—the sense of fulfillment, catharsis, or self-expression that comes from creating something meaningful. For many creators, the process of making art is an end in itself, a way to process emotions, explore new ideas, or make sense of the world around them. The value here isn’t monetary; it’s intrinsic, tied to the very act of creation.

Then there’s cultural value. Art shapes the narratives we live by, reflects societal values, and often challenges them. A powerful piece of writing or a thought-provoking piece of art can spur movements, change minds, and influence the course of history. Just think of how protest songs have united generations or how street art has become a powerful tool for political resistance. These works may not always be profitable in the traditional sense, but their value is undeniable in the way they connect people, ignite conversations, and shape our collective consciousness.

Finally, there’s community value. In an age where we are increasingly isolated, creative work can be a bridge that brings people together. Whether it’s through shared experiences of a novel, a viral TikTok dance, or a fan community rallying around a new podcast, art fosters connection. It helps build relationships, nurtures empathy, and strengthens the bonds between individuals and communities.

The real man behind the curtain 

Zuckerberg’s dismissal of individual creators isn’t just a singular instance of corporate gaslighting—it reflects a much larger and more troubling trend in the tech industry: the gradual devaluation of human labor. What we’re seeing with Meta’s stance on user-generated content is emblematic of a broader economic shift—one where the value of human contribution is minimized as machines take on more and more of the work.

This is not a new story. Since the Industrial Revolution, technological advancements have always sparked fears about labor displacement. But while past revolutions led to new types of jobs, AI seems poised to disrupt more than just factory work—it threatens to replace some of the most uniquely human forms of labor, including creative and intellectual work.

By claiming that creators overestimate their value, Zuckerberg is playing into this larger narrative that human contributions—especially those that can be quantified, like content creation—are replaceable by machines. This echoes the broader ideology in the tech industry, and of capitalism writ large: efficiency and profitability overshadow human creativity and effort. 

By scraping the internet for data, these models are essentially mining the collective knowledge and creativity of millions of individuals. And while each piece of content may seem insignificant in isolation, together they form the backbone of what makes these AI models function. Yet, companies like Meta are more than happy to downplay the contributions of individual creators while leveraging their work for profit. This dynamic mirrors what’s happening across industries as automation progresses: human labor is treated as a cost to be minimized, not a valuable contribution to be recognized (or compensated).

One man’s art is another man’s rocket fuel 

So, there you have it: another day, another techno-capitalist salivating to dismiss the intrinsic worth of human creativity while eagerly siphoning it off to fuel their empire. It’s not that Zuckerberg doesn’t know the value of individual contributions—he knows all too well. But admitting that value means opening the door to compensating the creators who built the very platforms and tools that now claim to transcend them. And we can’t have that, can we?

Zuckerberg’s statement reflects a growing trend in how tech giants see creators—as raw material for the machine, valuable only in aggregate, and easily replaced. What these tech giants are saying, between the lines, is that the value of individual creative work—the words, art, and ideas that we produce—is insignificant when weighed against the manifest destiny that is AI or really any tech trend that rises to the level of “too big to fail.”  

Let’s be clear: the cost here is a human one. If data is the new oil, humans are the natural resources that oil is made from; without their work, platforms like Facebook and Instagram would be barren landscapes. Yet, the system is rigged to make creators feel like their work is disposable. When Zuckerberg says that creators overestimate their value, he's not just talking about individual posts or pieces of content—he’s devaluing the creative ecosystem as a whole. He’s implying that creativity can be easily replaced, automated, and replicated by machines, and that human creators are overreaching in expecting recognition, let alone compensation, for their intellectual property.

Zuckerberg’s statement is a defense of a system that treats creators as a means to an end, a system that capitalizes on their labor while denying its value. But what he overlooks is that creators are starting to wake up to the power they hold. They’re realizing that without their contributions, the algorithms falter, the engagement drops, and the profits dwindle. The very thing Zuckerberg dismisses as overvalued—the individual creator’s work—could become his biggest vulnerability.