What Do Platforms Do? Understanding the Gig Economy
2020/04/21 by Steven P. Vallas, Steven Vallas, Juliet B. Schor · 52 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Digital Economy and Work Transformation #Sharing Economy and Platforms #Taxation and Compliance Studies
paper · doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-121919-054857
openalex publication_date 2020/04/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Abstract
The rapid growth of the platform economy has provoked scholarly discussion of its consequences for the nature of work and employment. We identify four major themes in the literature on platform work and the underlying metaphors associated with each. Platforms are seen as entrepreneurial incubators, digital cages, accelerants of precarity, and chameleons adapting to their environments. Each of these devices has limitations, which leads us to introduce an alternative image of platforms: as permissive potentates that externalize responsibility and control over economic transactions while still exercising concentrated power. As a consequence, platforms represent a distinct type of governance mechanism, different from markets, hierarchies, or networks, and therefore pose a unique set of problems for regulators, workers, and their competitors in the conventional economy. Reflecting the instability of the platform structure, struggles over regulatory regimes are dynamic and difficult to predict, but they are sure to gain in prominence as the platform economy grows.
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