Platforms As Capitalists, Infrastructures Of Accumulation: Examining The Platformisation And Commercialisation Of The Labour Relationship

Abstract

Remote and digitally mediated work has become the next frontier in the development of the knowledge economy, especially in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, online labour platforms have existed since the early 2000s, triangulating the labour relationship to include themselves as the profit-driven intermediatory. It is the central argument of this thesis that the platform, in its ability to create and facilitate labour relationships within its private digital environment, can take ownership of this relationship and extract fees from users for access. The present body of research into online labour platforms has provided foundational work in conceptualising labour platforms, identifying key infrastructures within these platforms, and depicting the experiences of workers. It is with the support of this body of work that this thesis can dive deeper into the minutiae of platform design and investigate how the design allows the platform enterprise to extract profits from the facilitation of remote labour relationships. In doing so, this thesis aims to reframe the discussion of labour platforms to centralise the capitalist orientation of the platform enterprise as it seeks to valorise the labour relation for profit. This valorisation of the labour relationship is made possible through digital infrastructures that curate and manage both buyer and seller users to align with the platform’s strategy of accumulation. This thesis applies a mixed method approach in its investigation into the Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT), Squadhelp and Upwork platforms, which combines industrial labour sociological inquiry with new media ethnographies to reveal the intricate ways in which human and non-human agents interact on labour platforms, and how the platform enterprise profits from the ownership over this interaction.