Fierce transparency and gentle confinement: how collaborative platforms control you
"In our society, to access goods and services, you need to have the codes, both literally and figuratively. A QR code, a digital code, a password, a barcode, or a magnetic card..."
Benjamin Benoit, University of Perpignan; Agnès Mazars-Chapelon, University of Montpellier; Fabienne Villeseque-Dubus, University of Perpignan and Gérald Naro, University of Montpellier
This is what Pascal Lardellier and Sonia Zannad highlighted in an article in The Conversation's "Cult Objects" series. While our parents have always been familiar with cultural or dress codes, which vary according to location and society, today's codes are also digital and apply to everyone, everywhere. Fifty years after the invention of the barcode, QR codes have burst into our personal lives: from proof of vaccination against coronavirus to show tickets and travel permits during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, they have quickly become part of our daily lives.
Today, "having the codes" more broadly refers to the idea of human existence that has shifted into a world characterized by the ubiquity of personal data: administrative documents, online browsing, social media activity, etc. All of this collected data, which allows individuals' behavior to be tracked, is the lifeblood of commercial collaborative platforms such as—to name just the best known—the rental property site Airbnb, the carpooling site Blablacar, and independent driver apps.
They all boast about their collaborative nature. But are they really collaborative at heart?
Pressured to behave well
One feature of these platforms is that they rely on different rating systems between users and service providers. Commercial platforms thus make themselves attractive through their promises of transparency, which allow anyone to become the manager of their own offering, one day managing a property rental business, the next day piloting a transportation solution. Thanks to these collaborative solutions, we can become entrepreneurs relatively easily, and almost all of us can get an idea of the quality of service when we put ourselves in the customer's shoes.
Individuals are nevertheless also encouraged to act in accordance with the organization's expectations, since the evaluation system is designed by the organization itself. In the case of Airbnb, a host can become a "superhost" if they meet certain conditions and satisfy not only their customers but also the organization. The label then allows them to be listed at the top of the list, unlike those who have not satisfied the company's rules.
Similarly, at Blablacar, users evaluate service providers, assign ratings, and leave comments. As a driver, the higher your status, such as ambassador (verified contacts, profile photo, more than 90% positive reviews, and more than one year of service), the more likely you are to be chosen by passengers, who see this as proof of safety and a guarantee of trust. This system tends to ensure a certain degree of conformity and consistency in behavior, as few people will risk breaking the rules and being excluded.
Algorithmic control
When we wanted to contact Airbnb to conduct interviews, our efforts proved unsuccessful despite letters, emails, phone calls, and a visit to their Paris headquarters, where the doors remained closed. On the other hand, as users, we open up our personal data, which is recorded, stored, and processed for commercial purposes, albeit with our consent. But what knowledge, let alone control, do we have over data that becomes invisible to the user?
One of the features of these platforms is that they provide users with digital management control systems, which operate using algorithms. These systems provide users, suppliers, and consumers with a wealth of data to assist them in their decision-making. In a research article published in 2020, we showed that this functionality could also guide or even influence users in their choices. For example, by encouraging rental companies to automate reservations, or by allowing the system to opt for so-called "smart" pricing.
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If we take the emblematic case of Airbnb, the number of visits and benchmarks with information from other equivalent accommodations are exchanged and used in the company's management system. This data feeds into a series of mechanisms such as pricing, scheduling, automatic booking, status, and customer reviews. The organization can thus guide the behavior of hosts and, based on an asymmetry of information because it knows more than users, influence their choices.
At the same time, hosts know that they are operating under the watchful eye and within the reassuring framework provided by the platform. They have access to tables tracking their monthly and annual activity; they can see past and future payments; they also know the costs associated with renting out the property (cleaning, cancellation, etc.) and have access to tracking indicators and price comparisons for similar properties in the same geographical area, so that the customer/user is gently introduced to a world where reality is constructed and controlled by algorithms.
Soft and comfortable
Users thus adhere to and conform to a system of beliefs that are not necessarily their own, but rather those of the platform. The collaborative opening up of the sharing economy since the beginning of this century is combined with, to use the term coined by philosopher Gilles Deleuze, a "society of control" that is spreading into the private sphere of individuals' behavior. In the early 1990s, the philosopher had this prescient intuition:
"The digital language of control is made up of numbers, which mark access to information, or rejection. We are no longer faced with the mass-individual dichotomy. Individuals have become dividuals, and the masses have become samples, data, markets, or banks."
He clarified, before alerting us:
"We are entering into societies of control that no longer function through confinement, but through continuous monitoring and instant communication. [...] Faced with the coming forms of incessant control in an open environment, it may be that the harshest forms of confinement will seem to us to belong to a delightful and benevolent past."
And yet, how sweet and comfortable contemporary confinement seems to us, as it is filled with desires that are immediately expressed, immediately satisfied, even anticipated! It is therefore necessary to protect users and ensure they have bargaining power. This is the role of regulators and politicians, since it is a question of power and freedom, concepts that are at the heart of democracy.
Benjamin Benoit, Professor Management Sciences (MRM-UPVD), University of Perpignan; Agnès Mazars-Chapelon, University Professor in Management Sciences, University of Montpellier; Fabienne Villeseque-Dubus, University Professor of Management Sciences, University of Perpignan and Gérald Naro, Professor of Management Sciences, University of Montpellier
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Readthe original article.