digital rentier capitalism
The idea that digital goods like music, movies, hosting and software licensing are increasingly being rented to users, at great profit to those who control the platforms: Spotify, Netflix, AWS, and subscription based software products, respectively.
This is the digital equivalent of landlords making a living while doing very little work, by owning property and charging tenants to live there. Landlords gain equity while their tenants, who often can't afford to buy property, are forced to pay for the landlord's equity in perpetuity.
In the digital realm, musicians and film makers and web developers are beholden to the rules and economies of the platforms their creations are hosted on. This typically leads to far greater earnings for the platform owners—middlemen—than the artists and creators whose work their platforms depend on.