Reading :: Digital Work and the Platform Economy

Digital Work and the Platform Economy: Understanding Tasks, Skills and Capabilities in the New EraEdited by Seppo Poutanen, Anne Kovalainen, and Petri Rouvinen

Digital platforms include digital labor markets (Upwork, Fiverr, Uber), but also "platforms that can manage [firms'] interface with the external market and society" (as Kenney et al. say in Chapter 1, p.13). Kenney et al. provide us with a taxonomy that includes

• Venture labor
• Contractors
• Platform-mediated marketplaces
• Platform-mediated in-person service provision
• Platform-mediated remote service provision
• Consignment content creators
• Non-platform organization content
• User-generated content (p.17)

This first chapter provided an excellent overview of platform work. And through the rest of the book, contributors discuss topics such as: theorizing platform work; understanding how it interacts with workers' health and safety; understanding changes to vocational education, employment agencies, and migrant labor; understanding how to measure productivity; and understanding cultural changes.

The last topic was especially interesting to me. Laura Seppanen and Seppo Poutanen use activity theory to theorize platform work, arguing that platform workers still tend to follow a price-based market logic (p.183). (They generously use my typology from All Edge.) 

If you are looking for an overview of digital platforms, I recommend this book, which provides a great overview as well as a wealth of sources.