Control and consent in the connected age: The work of contractors on transnational online education platforms

Abstract

Drawing on ABCKID, one of the world’s largest online education platforms, and its six competitors, this paper rethinks control and consent of work in the platform economy. Falling into a new category of home-based virtual platforms, ABCKID has mobilized a group of American contractors (e.g. stay-at-home moms) who were previously marginalized in the US labor market. Using interviews, surveys and online data, I found that most ABCKID contractors show high levels of job satisfaction due to their relative gains. Furthermore, although ABCKID imposes strict and direct control over contractors’ work content and schedules, it opens new room for contractors to adapt to control. Contractors’ adaptive practices have also made the platform’s efforts to organize control as games less effective. I argue that consent of work on these platforms is not only a product of relative gains, but also a result of interactions between contractors’ adaptive practices and platforms’ direct controls.