PTThe golden cage of ride-hailing apps
Uber and 99 promise drivers freedom and earnings. By reading the companies’ websites, listening to 8 drivers in São Paulo and to the comments on a Brazilian Chamber of Deputies poll, the thesis shows that the platforms promote and violate drivers’ dignity at the same time. Explained in 12 screens.
An app is not neutral
The thesis starts from the philosopher Andrew Feenberg. For him, there are four ways of thinking about technology, depending on two questions. Answer them and see where you land:
Dignity promoted
recognition, independence, courtesy, levelling, empowerment…Dignity violated
indifference, ignoring, suspicion, exploitation, restriction, deception…The four views: Table 5 of the thesis (Feenberg, via Dagnino and Neder). Dignity elements: Tables 1 to 3 (Jacobson, 2009), with 24 ways of violating and 23 of promoting dignity (our count). For Jacobson, dignity is gained and lost in encounters between people.
Three sources of text read as clues
The method comes from the linguist Norman Fairclough: reading the words each side chooses, what they take for granted and who is shown doing what, in order to find the ideology behind the text. The author knows the subject from the inside: during his master’s degree, he drove for Uber and 99 for a year. Tap a source:
Chamber of Deputies poll on bill PLP 12/2024, opened on 5 March 2024, with responses up to 27 April 2024 (section 6.1.3). Each disc’s area is proportional to the number. 1,824 = 1,005 + 1,446 − 627 (our arithmetic).
The platforms sell earnings and freedom, and never mention work
In the texts inviting people to become drivers, the author found two appeals: earnings and freedom. Underneath them lies the idea of the self-entrepreneur, solely responsible for their own success. Tap the underlined words:
Excerpts from Table 14 and Annex C, collected from the companies’ websites during the research. The readings of each word summarize the analysis in section 7.2; translated by us.
Drivers repeat the platforms’ promise
Read each sentence and say: did it come from a platform’s website or from a driver?
Sentences from Tables 14 and 15 (E1 to E8 = interviews; C55 = poll comment), translated by us. For the author, drivers naturalize the companies’ discourse: E4 calls the freedom over hours the dignity part
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Those who drive a rented car leave home already in debt
Every day the guy goes out owing 200 reais, 100 for the rental and 100 for petrol
, says E7, who drives their own car on natural gas. Move the day’s takings and compare what is left in each case, using the figures from that account:
Illustration using the figures from one account (Table 16, E7); it leaves out maintenance, insurance and loan instalments. Profile: Table 7, our counts; the order of the boxes does not follow the codes. A survey cited by the thesis (Callil and Pinacaço, 2023) estimates that 22% of app drivers use a rented car, 54% a financed one and 23% one fully paid off.
When the app is switched on, freedom shrinks
Freedom exists, the thesis says, but on the outside: choosing the day and time to switch the app on. Once it is on, the driver enters a system of commissions, ratings and penalties they cannot see into. And the bills to pay force them to stay online. Switch it on and off:
The author calls this a golden cage: the benefits are real up to a point, and they are exactly why people cannot get out.
Mechanisms and quotes from Tables 17 to 21 (section 7.3); offline freedom and online control in sections 7.5 and 8. Our drawing; quotes translated by us.
On a R$100 ride, how much does the platform keep?
First, make your guess with the slider. Then tap the marks: in red, what drivers say the platform takes; in blue, what they ask for in the comments.
Accounts and requests from Tables 19, 20 and 23. These are drivers’ perceptions, not company data, which the thesis did not access. inDrive charges a fixed 10% fee, according to the thesis, but the interviewees rarely use it for lack of safety and support. Each cube is worth R$1.
Choosing a ride turned into a race against the clock
Each driver makes up a rule so as not to drive at a loss. Pick one of the rules the interviewees described and decide on each request before time runs out:
Requests invented by us, for illustration. The rules come from E2 and E7 (R$1 per minute) and from E8 (R$2 per km), in Table 22; the 10 seconds come from E3 and the block after three refusals from E7 (Tables 18 and 21). The timer has been stretched to 12 seconds.
What the poll said about the bill that promised rights to drivers
In 2024, Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies opened a poll on bill PLP 12/2024, which regulates app driving work with social security contributions and other rights. Guess: what share of the responses totally disagreed?
Figure 1 of the thesis (Chamber web page on 27 April 2024). The poll is open: anyone can vote, there is no sample, and we do not know how many voters are drivers (our observation). The labels on the 153 comments are the author’s (Annex D); the count is ours.
The same technology can be redesigned to respect drivers
Feenberg describes four pairs of moments: on one side, technology treats people as things; on the other, it gives them back context, ethics and a voice. For each pair, the thesis makes proposals. Flip the switches:
Propositions from section 7.5. They are the author’s reflections based on the analyses; they were not tested with platforms or drivers. Quotes translated by us.
Promoting and violating dignity at the same time
For platforms
- Show how much each ride deducts and set a known cap on the commission.
- Explain blocks and ratings, with a way for drivers to contest them.
- Allow drivers to refuse rides without penalty, and listen to them on day-to-day rules.
For public policy
- Regulate with an eye on what drivers ask for: commission, rate per km, safety and transparency, not only social security.
- Bear in mind that those who drive rented cars have less freedom of choice.
For drivers and for research
- Do the maths with all the costs, not only what shows up in the app.
- The thesis proposes combining critical theory of technology and critical discourse analysis to study social change; it suggests building a scale and a guide to dignified practices.
What this research does not say
- How many drivers think this way. These are 8 interviews in São Paulo, at a single point in time; the author considers that the poll comments widen the reach. · according to the author
- What the companies think. Uber and 99 managers were not interviewed; their voice comes from their websites. · according to the author
- How much the platforms actually charge. Commissions of 35% to 60% are drivers’ accounts, not company data. · our observation
- All drivers’ opinion of the bill. The poll is open and is not a sample; the 153 comments analysed were selected by keywords. · our observation
Credits
PORTES, Jerônimo Henrique. Discursos de (in) dignidade das plataformas digitais de mobilidade: uma análise à luz da Teoria Crítica da Tecnologia. Doctoral thesis (Business Administration) · Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, São Paulo, 2024. Advisor: Prof. Dr. Maria Luisa Mendes Teixeira.
Research approved by Mackenzie’s Research Ethics Committee (CAAE 73351823.9.0000.0084). Full tuition waiver from Instituto Presbiteriano Mackenzie. Interviewees are identified only by the thesis codes. This version simplifies the work for a general audience.