Platform Capitalists Are Turning Customers Into Managers in Disguise
From customer review platforms like Yelp and Ziosk to the ratings prompts built into gig-work apps like Uber and DoorDash, consumers are increasingly encouraged to monitor and assess workers. That’s free managerial labor for capitalists.
The rating technology increasingly built into our consumer experiences provides us with a feeling of managerial control, reproducing the coercive relations that cause us to feel powerless in the first place. (Getty Images)
It’s not hard to find arguments that hinge on the idea that consumer power is the key to social transformation.
Following the disappointing results of the Amazon union election in Bessemer, Alabama, the New York Times’ Farhad Manjoo opined that Amazon customers could “marshal [their] power on behalf of Amazon’s workers” by emailing Jeff Bezos to complain about the company’s inhumane labor practices.
In 2019, UK prime minister Theresa May asserted that consumers’ voices — more influential than businesses or governments — could end the global epidemic of slavery in our supply chains, while Slate contended that customers have a “moral obligation” to review small businesses on sites like Yelp.
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