Food and grocery delivery platforms claim they are no longer pushing workers to complete deliveries within 10 minutes. Yet the larger question remains unresolved: Can delivery workers truly escape the pressure of time-bound labour in a fiercely competitive platform economy? Whether in product deliveries, ride-hailing services, or customer support systems, digital platforms continue to operate on the logic of speed and constant availability. The modern platform economy is fundamentally built upon compressing time and space to maximise profits.AdvertisementThis logic is not entirely new. Karl Marx, in his theory of surplus value, and David Harvey in The Limits to Capital (1982) and The Condition of Postmodernity (1989), explained how capitalism seeks to reduce the time required for the circulation of commodities and capital. Technological advancements have intensified this tendency by enabling faster production, delivery, and labour extraction. The platform economy is an example of this. However, amid increasing technological surveillance and algorithmic management, can workers’ dignity, identity, social security, and welfare survive within these digitally controlled workplaces?Also Read | Concerns of gig workers must be heard, addressed fairlyDuring recent fieldwork in Delhi, I interacted extensively with delivery workers employed by food and grocery applications. One phrase repeatedly surfaced: “jitna zyada kaam karoge utna kamaoge” — the more you work, the more you earn. This resembles the old capitalist promise that hard work guarantees better earnings, a belief that continues to dominate India’s labour market.However, the condition of gig workers reveals a different story. Many delivery agents reported working more than 84 hours a week simply to break what they colloquially call the incentive “tala” (lock) — a threshold that must be crossed before higher incentives become available. Even after such exhausting schedules, most workers in Delhi earn only between Rs 25,000 and Rs 30,000 a month. From this, they must manage fuel expenses, vehicle EMI and maintenance, rent, and family responsibilities.AdvertisementVandana Vasudevan, author of OTP Please! (2025), describes this emerging workforce as a “neo-proletariat” — workers trapped in precarious urban labour arrangements without stability or long-term security. Films such as Sorry We Missed You (2019) and Zwigato (2022) portray how urban workers adapt themselves to app-based employment to survive within the modern economy. Rising fuel prices have deepened their vulnerability, making workers increasingly dependent on uncertain state interventions and inconsistent platform policies.Equally troubling is the growing role of technology and artificial intelligence in regulating labour. Gig work is often presented as technologically neutral, but workers frequently suspect that human managers continue to intervene through algorithmic systems. They have little clarity regarding how incentives are altered, how performance metrics are determined, or why penalties suddenly appear. Dynamic targets and changing incentive structures continuously pressure workers to do more in the hope of earning more.you may likeAlthough the government has recently proposed reforms through the four labour codes and introduced welfare-related recommendations for gig workers, awareness remains limited. One significant proposal was the introduction of formal job offer letters to provide legitimacy to gig workers. Yet most delivery workers I spoke to were unaware of these developments or their potential implications.Historically, systems such as Taylorism and Fordism justified labour exploitation in the name of efficiency and precision. Today, app-based algorithms appear to reproduce similar forms of control through digital surveillance and psychological manipulation. The challenge before us is clear: Can workers be protected from these new forms of exploitation embedded within the expanding platform economy?The writer is assistant professor, Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, Delhi