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Amazonian Era

‘Platform’ work has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. This new model of work coordination fundamentally changes access to, terms and conditions of, and quality of work. This shelf shares resources which demonstrate that human labour remains central to ‘platform’ business models, despite often being hidden from view. We are keen to critically engage with a wide range of perspectives on the future of work. These resources do not necessarily reflect the views of IFOW.

Amazonian Era

Big Tech: Four Emerging Forms of Digital Rentiership

This paper defines platforms as businesses which generate revenue through data capture, processing and rent, and reconceive big tech as ecosystems, not platforms.
Amazonian Era

The Uberisation of work: the challenge of regulation

This paper provides an overview of platformisation and its role in shaping a growth of precarious work.
Amazonian Era

Platforms and the New Division of Labor Between Humans and Machines

This book chapter highlights the ways in which human labour becomes ‘system-sustaining labour’ in the platform era.
Amazonian Era

The trainer, the verifier, the imitator: Three ways in which human platform workers support artificial intelligence

Focusing on ‘micro-workers’ this paper draws on qualitative data to demonstrate that micro-work performs a variety of functions often hidden by the ‘AI’, and the ephemeral nature of this.
Amazonian Era

Heteromation and its (dis)contents: The invisible division of labor between humans and machines

This paper uses practical examples of automation in firms to demonstrate the ways in which human contributions to value creation can be hidden from view.
Amazonian Era

Machinic dispossession and augmented despotism: Digital work in an Amazon warehouse

This paper demonstrates how worker insight is incorporated into platforms, generating the value they create.
Amazonian Era

Humanly Extended Automation or the Future of Work Seen through Amazon Patents

This paper demonstrates the design priorities of Amazon in the creation of new technology.
Amazonian Era

The rise of the platform business model and the transformation of twenty first century capitalism

This paper highlights how the ‘amazonian era’ relies on a new pact between platforms and consumers, and transformation of the ‘firm’.
Amazonian Era

The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms

This paper explores drivers of the capital share of ‘superstar firms’, such as leading technology ‘platforms’, without looking at the contribution of labour.
Amazonian Era

‘Uberisation’ Is the Future of the Digitalised Labour Market

This paper makes the case that the reduction in transaction costs associated with platform business models will drive a transformation of the whole economy to platform governance models.

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