The Moral Economy of Platform Work

What is it about?

The paper tackles an underlying tension within platform and digital labor scholarship: how do we talk about the social and cconomic implications of platforms together? Drawing on economic anthropology and digital studies, we offer a window into dynamic moral norms in daily platform work.

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Why is it important?

Through our findings, we show three types of moral responses by platform workers and consumers such as (1) the expression of gratitude, kindness; (2) tipping and the construction of 'genuine' customers and (3) expectations of polite professionalism. We also describe a dynamic morality that shows how workers shift their positions based on platfroms' ever evolving computational infrastructures and interfaces. In particular, we show how workers engaged with questions of dishonesty/honesty, hard work/gaming the system through practices of circumventing rules. We hope that future work continues attending to the everyday interactions between workers and consumers.