The rapid growth of Uber and analogous platform companies has led to considerable scholarly interest in the phenomenon of platform labor. Scholars have taken two main approaches to explaining outcomes for platform work—precarity, which focuses on employment classification and insecure labor, and technological control via algorithms. Both predict that workers will have relatively common experiences. On the basis of 112 in-depth interviews with workers on seven platforms (Airbnb, TaskRabbit, Turo, Uber, Lyft, Postmates, and Favor) we find heterogeneity of experiences across and within platforms. We argue that because platform labor is weakly institutionalized, worker satisfaction, autonomy, and earnings vary significantly across and within platforms, suggesting dominant interpretations are insufficient. We find that the extent to which workers are dependent on platform income to pay basic expenses rather than working for supplemental income explains the variation in outcomes, with supplemental earners being more satisfied and higher-earning. This suggests platforms are free-riding on conventional employers. We also find that platforms are hierarchically ordered, in terms of what providers can earn, conditions of work, and their ability to produce satisfied workers. Our findings suggest the need for a new analytic approach to platforms, which emphasizes labor force diversity, connections to conventional labor markets, and worker dependence.

For social analysts, what has come to be called the "sharing economy" raises important questions. After a discussion of history and definitions, we focus on 3 areas of research in the for-profit segment, also called the platform economy: social connection, conditions for laborers, and inequalities. Although we find that some parts of the platform economy, particularly Airbnb, do foster social connection, there are also ways in which even shared hospitality is becoming more like conventional exchange. With respect to labor conditions, we find they vary across platforms and the degree to which workers are dependent on the platform to meet their basic needs. On inequality, there is mounting evidence that platforms are facilitating person-to-person discrimination by race.In addition, platforms are advantaging those who already have human capital or physical assets, in contrast to claims that they provide widespread opportunity or even advantage less privileged individuals.

The ‘sharing economy’ is a contested realm, with critics arguing it represents a further development of neoliberalism, as platforms such as Airbnb and TaskRabbit, monetize previously uncommodified realms of life via renting of bedrooms, possessions, space and labor time. To date, this debate has largely ignored participants’ views. Using data from 120 in-depth interviews with providers in two for-profit and three not-for-profit sites, we find that most see the sharing economy differently, as an opportunity to build a radically different market, from the bottom up. Like the detractors, they are critical of dominant market arrangements, however, they believe the sharing sector can construct personalized exchanges that are morally attuned, based on ideals of community, and that help them achieve creative and financial autonomy in their working lives. These aspirations represent an attempt to tame, or domesticate the neoliberal market.

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