This paper aims to address the dark side perspective on digital control and surveillance by emphasizing the affective grip of ideological control, namely the process that silently ensures the subjugation of digital labour, and which keeps the ‘unexpectedness’ of algorithmic practices at bay: that is, the propensity of users to contest digital prescriptions. In particular, the theoretical contribution of this paper is to combine Labour Process with psychoanalytically-informed, post-structuralist theory, in order to connect to, and further our understanding of, how and why digital workers assent to, or oppose, the interpellations of algorithmic ideology at work. To illustrate the operation of affective control in the Platform Economy, the emblematic example of ride-hailing platforms, such as Uber, and their algorithmic management, is revisited. Thus, the empirical section describes the way drivers are glued to the algorithm (e.g. for one more fare, or for the next surge pricing) in a way that prevents them, although not always, from considering genuine resistance to management. Finally, the paper discusses the central place of ideological fantasy and cynical enjoyment in the Platform Economy, as well as the ethical implications of the study.

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While recent theoretical debates have foregrounded sociomaterial studies and the interpenetration between the social and the material, practicebased studies have neglected, if not omitted, the place of affect and ideology in work practice. The use of the notion of materiality causes a conflation of different ontological claims, and a conceptual clarification is needed to grasp the polysemy of materiality. This paper provides some key notions for those interested in addressing the materiality of the affective register at work. By drawing on authors such as Lacan, Althusser, Butler and the Essex Lacanian School, this paper suggests that much is to be gained by addressing two difficult but crucial notions: the materiality of the signifier and ideological fantasy.

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