When the gig economy hit cities across the world in the early 2010s, gig companies promised flexible working hours to their “contractors” and on-demand ease to their customers. In reality, the companies and their algorithms have induced a monumental change in patterns of work and consumption, recomposing commercial districts in pursuit of more efficient last-mile delivery and invisibilising deeply exploitative and often criminally underpaid labour practices. In a bid to understand this new form of “algorithmic management”, researcher Callum Cant took a job riding for Deliveroo, a food delivery startup that was founded in the UK in 2013 by Will […]