commodification

From commodify +‎ -ification.

commodification (countable and uncountable, plural commodifications)

2. The assignment of a commercial value to something previously without such value.

   Near-synonyms: commercialization, monetization

   • 2006, Ross Haenfler, Straight Edge: Hardcore Punk, Clean-Living Youth, and Social Change:

     Subcultures tend to go through continual cycles of commodification and resistance to that commodification.

   • 2023 November 21, Megan K. Stack, “Is Ireland Headed for a Merger?”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     One drizzly morning, I joined a political walking tour to hear former combatants of the Troubles show off Belfast landmarks and tell their stories. Almost everything about this notion piqued my curiosity: the commodification of violence into a tourist product; the idea that “politics” was actually history.

4. The transformation from being commercialized on a nonfungible basis into becoming a commodity that is fungible.

   Synonym: commoditization

   A company that innovates to achieve the commercialization of a technology often must shift strategy some decades later in response to the advent of that technology's commodification.

Sometimes used interchangeably with commoditization (sense 2), and sometimes distinguished to have a sense of “non-commercial good becoming commercial” (sense 1); see commoditize § Usage notes.

• commodify