Former Valve economist thinks Apple, Google, other platforms, should pay 'cloud tax'

Yanis Varoufakis, an economist who previously worked at Valve and served in Greece's Hellenic Parliament, believes tech companies—including those who operate game platforms like Apple and Google—should be taxed for how they run game platforms and control product choice.

In an interview with Aftermath about his book Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Varoufakis explained how tech platforms like Apple and Amazon have become "algorithm-powered fiefdoms," driving the titular "technofeudalism" he wrote about.

Those companies (and possibly his former employer) have "extracted" people out of the market to replace it with one that greatly benefits them. He refers to the value these companies pull out of the market as "cloud capital"

As he explains it, the government could (and should) have these corporations put 30 percent of shares into a commonwealth fund in what he calls a "cloud tax." That fund could then be evenly distributed to the public as a form of basic income.

Varoufakis doesn't call Valve out by name (it's a smaller company operating in a relatively smaller market), but his arguments echo ones we've heard before. Its control over the PC game economy has been previously brought up by Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney. Like with Apple, Sweeney believes Valve has unjustifiable platform fees that hurt smaller developers and help it maintain a monopoly.

Varoufakis doesn't go quite that far, but he acknowledged that Valve's become "part of the problem" with the current market. "Everyone participated in the creation of this world."

"There's a job that we must do," he continued. "The market is not going to solve this problem, [it's] already been usurped by cloud capital. [...] That is hard work, but you know what? There's no alternative."

Varoufakis' full discussion with Aftermath on technofeudalism, Valve, and the rise of the digital marketplace can be read here.