Ratings and Complaints: Customer-Controlled Work
摘要
Digital platforms are organizational models that render the manager figure invisible, an invisibility which is reinforced by the fact that control is decentralized and distributed. They abandon certain aspects of control in order to enrol customers, who then become middle managers responsible for assessing both the drivers and the service they provide. This is the main tool used to control Uber drivers. Although one of the main reasons people join Uber is to escape hierarchical pressure, they nevertheless find themselves subject to a strong relational constraint. Here customers replace managers and make use of the considerable power conferred by the platform. A relationship of domesticity is established between customers and drivers. Uber drivers employ strategies to avoid conflicts but are faced with the arbitrary decisions of customers who can at any time deprive them of their main source of income.