Promises and Realities: Working on Digital Platforms - Julius-Cezar MacQuarie

Glovo, Uber, or Bolt are just some of the names that have become known in Romania in a very short time, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. But a less discussed phenomenon is what it means to be a delivery person or a courier when your manager is an algorithm that monitors your every move and checks you at every step. In other words, what does it mean to be a worker on a digital platform and part of the “platform economy”? Are these workers really their own bosses? And do they really work when and as much as they want? In this text and podcast, I talk about the lives of night workers hired by online ordering platforms and transport and courier services in big cities like Bucharest, Brașov, Cluj, Iași, and Timișoara, the so-called “siliconised cities.” Bolt or Uber drivers are the people who work “behind the scenes” 24/7 (twenty-fo ...