Die Plattform als Fabrik

Abstract

The article analyses digital labour on crowdwork platforms as paradigmatic example of an emerging digital Taylorism. The characteristics of this tendency comprise elements of classical Taylorist forms of rationalisation now enabled and reconfigured by digital technology. The algorithmic architecture of digital platforms can include distributed and diverse workers in front of their computers and smartphones into highly standardised labour processes. This allows tapping into new labour resources, both in temporal and spatial dimensions. In this respect crowdwork is finally situated in the context of the multiplication of labour, understood as a heterogenization of the division and composition of labour of which digital labour such as crowdwork is part and parcel