The Tenant's Trap
Under Platform Feudalism, success is dangerous. If a creator builds a massive audience on TikTok or Instagram, they are improving the landlord's property, not their own. The platform can change the algorithm (raising the "rent") or ban the user (eviction), destroying their livelihood overnight.
The Mechanism of Control
Feudalism relies on lock-in. Platforms prevent users from leaving by holding their social graph hostage. "You can leave Facebook, but you leave your friends behind." This lack of interoperability is the wall around the fiefdom.
Field Notes
The "Sharecropping" Analogy: Many digital labor scholars compare influencers to sharecroppers. They work the land (create content) and give the platform the majority of the value (ad revenue), keeping only a subsistence fraction.