Is Platform Capitalism Socially Sustainable?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This essay studies the “Is Platform capitalism socially sustainable?” The topic is relevant and holds scholarly value. I would like to offer a few suggestions to enhance the quality of the manuscript.

 

1. The abstract should be better written. The scope/approach must also be expanded. Main arguments or findings must also be refined.
2. The introductory paragraph must be rewritten because the main purpose is not clearly constructed. The contributory paragraph is also not clearly written. Highlight how your argument contributes to, challenges, or extends existing theories or concepts.
3. The discussion part is quite convincing; however, it must explain all the discussion with reference to the previous literature. The authors must also add the conclusion separately.
4. The reviewer suggests that how this issue or solution may affect broader educational or societal outcomes. The author must also propose areas that need more exploration or debate in future studies. Acknowledge any limitations in scope, data, perspective, or methodology, even in non-empirical work.
5. I suggest the authors double-check the language errors.

Author Response

I thanks the refeeres for their contribution and suggestions. I rewrote most of the paper, by checking the language with a mother tongue reader. I introduced a final paragraphs as conclusion and in the first a brief analysis of the literature, as requested.

I have to say that this paper is a theoretical paper and it could be difficult to insert concrete case-studies. There 'll be the opportunity for a further research

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript provides a critical and timely exploration of platform capitalism and its implications for social and environmental sustainability. It offers a thorough theoretical analysis, particularly highlighting the commodification of life and data, precarious labour, and monopolistic tendencies of digital platforms. However, while the manuscript engages with important issues, it lacks empirical evidence and practical solutions for addressing the social and environmental challenges it discusses. The paper would benefit from a more actionable perspective on how to improve sustainability within platform capitalism.

Comments:

The manuscript would be stronger with real-world examples or case studies to support its claims and provide practical insight into the effects of platform capitalism.

 

The analysis should be paired with concrete recommendations or policy suggestions for mitigating the negative impacts of platform capitalism on social and environmental sustainability.

 

The paper would benefit from a broader review of literature, especially regarding alternative economic models or platforms aligned with sustainability.

 

Explicitly connecting the analysis to the United Nations' SDGs would strengthen the paper’s relevance to sustainability-focused journals.

 

The manuscript is highly critical but does not adequately explore how platforms could potentially contribute to social or environmental sustainability, such as through circular economy models or sustainable business practices.

 

The manuscript’s theoretical approach could be made clearer for a broader audience. Simplifying certain sections may enhance its accessibility. 

 

Including real-life examples of financial models or market changes influenced by platform capitalism would add depth to the analysis.

 

The conclusion could benefit from a clearer summary of the research findings, along with more practical recommendations for the future.

 

Author Response

I thanks the refeeres for their contribution and suggestions. I rewrote most of the paper, by checking the language with a mother tongue reader. I introduced a final paragraphs as conclusion and in the first a brief analysis of the literature, as requested.

I have to say that this paper is a theoretical paper and it could be difficult to insert concrete case-studies. There 'll be the opportunity for a further research

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

REVIEW PAPER ID: Sustainability-3423434

General Comments

The author of this work examines the socio-economic novelties introduced by platform capitalism, particularly focusing on the transformation of labor and value creation in the digital age.​ Additionally, Fumagalli has explored the valorization process in platform capitalism, analyzing how value is generated and appropriated in digital labor contexts. This analysis is part of the book "Capitalism in the Platform Age," where he discusses the shift from traditional labor-value theories to considerations of life-value in the context of intangible and bio-cognitive accumulation.​

The manuscript “Is Platform Capitalism Socially Sustainable?” offers a rich and timely reflection on the socio-economic and ecological implications of the so-called ‘platform capitalism,’ drawing on key concepts from cognitive and bio-cognitive capitalism. Together with the most quoted author in this paper, Nick Srnicek (2017), the author highlights the growing dominance of digital platforms as business models and monopolistic firms that extract and control vast amounts of data. 

This economic model, as described by Srnicek (2017) and Langley & Leyson (2017), highlights the centrality of platforms in shaping digital economic activities. The complexity of platform capitalism lies in its intersection with various disciplines and its ambivalent impact on the world of work.

The analysis by Liang, Aroles, and Brandl (2022) provides a nuanced perspective on platform capitalism by dissecting its four main facets: crowdsourcing, sharing economy, gig economy, and platform economy. While these facets share a common foundation in the rise of Web 2.0 and the proliferation of digital platforms, their distinct socioeconomic contexts and developmental trajectories set them apart.

For instance, crowdsourcing emphasizes leveraging collective intelligence for tasks, often through open calls. At the same time, the sharing economy revolves around peer-to-peer exchanges of goods or services, often focusing on access over ownership. On the other hand, the gig economy is characterized by short-term, flexible work arrangements facilitated by platforms, and the platform economy serves as the overarching infrastructure enabling these interactions.

The conflation of these terms in broader discourse can obscure their unique characteristics and implications. This amalgamation often stems from the overarching narrative of digital transformation and novelty, prioritizing technological and innovative aspects over nuanced socioeconomic and cultural contexts.

The author’s theoretical stance is strong, with clear references to Srnicek, Toffler, Marxian dichotomies, and regulationist insights from authors such as Vercellone and Lazonick. The paper frames platform capitalism not merely as a technical or economic phenomenon, but as a deeper transformation in the valorization of human activity—a crucial and original lens for a journal like Sustainability. The figures the author mentions on lines 26-39—rising from €3 billion in 2016 to €14 billion in 2020, and further to $40.2 billion in 2022—underscore the transformative economic power of platforms. However, platform capitalism also encompasses broader societal, cultural, and technological shifts. It reflects changes in consumption patterns, work modalities, and how businesses and individuals interact. As the author notes, the normalization of platform-based services has reshaped expectations and behaviors, making it difficult to revert to pre-platform models. This trajectory suggests that platforms are not just economic tools but integral components of modern life, influencing everything from labor practices to social dynamics (lines 40-45).

In Section 2. The digital platform as radical organisational innovation, the author emphasizes the centrality of digital platforms in shaping market hierarchies and competitiveness. Defining "bio-cognitive capitalism" allows a focused analysis of how these platforms mediate and transform economic and social interactions (lines 72-83). Here is why defining it is essential:

1. Novel Valorization Processes: The passage points to the emergence of new ways to generate value, particularly by integrating traditionally "unproductive" activities like social cooperation, leisure, and education into the capitalist framework. By defining "bio-cognitive capitalism," we can better analyze how these processes differ from earlier forms of capitalism.
2. Reconceptualizing Economic Dichotomies: The reference to the prosumer (producer-consumer) and the reconsideration of Marxian concepts like use value and exchange value underscore a need to rethink traditional economic categories. This rethinking is crucial for understanding how value is created and exchanged in this new paradigm.
3. Expanding the Basis of Accumulation: Including vital faculties and activities outside the capitalist valorization process signals a significant expansion of what is considered economically valuable. Circumscribing "bio-cognitive capitalism" helps clarify how this expansion impacts labor, production, and societal structures.

In Sub-section 2.1 The possible hybridisation of the human element and the mechanical element, the author of this paper mention without naming it the ‘platform economy’ which is intertwined with the so far described new technological paradigm, encompassing advancements in biogenetics, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), nanotechnology, robotics, and big data. These technologies collectively underpin the infrastructure and operations of platforms, enabling them to process vast amounts of data, optimize interactions, and innovate at unprecedented scales. The "becoming machine of the human" and "becoming human of the machine" reflect the blurring boundaries between human and machine capabilities, as platforms increasingly mediate human activities and integrate cognitive and biological faculties into their processes (lines 84-90).

Rochet and Tirole (2003) introduced the term, distinguishing it from conventional two-sided market economies by emphasizing a triangular relationship between platforms, workers, and customers. Platforms serve as infrastructures comprising software, tools, rules, and services, enabling online interactive communities that facilitate user interactions. A key feature of the platform economy is its use of data to match workers and consumers based on supply and demand. It relies on large-scale horizontal networked communications and interactions, forming the foundation of its operations. While some view the platform economy as a means to achieve greater social good, others express concerns about the potential unintended consequences of new technologies. This highly technological concept makes its historical tracing more challenging than other facets of platform capitalism.

As Langley, P., Leyshon, A. (2017) emphasized, the internet has created opportunities to address the challenges of two-sided or multi-sided markets, where economic agents must find each other to transact. Evans (2011) identifies four examples of intermediation within these markets:

1. Physical place-based exchanges, like stock or commodities exchanges, host buyers and sellers for a fee.
2. Advertising-supported media provide content to attract audiences that is then delivered to advertisers who pay for access.
3. Transaction systems such as credit and debit cards act as a form of payment between buyers and vendors, with an interchange fee charged to vendors.
4. Software platforms, where code (in the form of an operating system) becomes the medium for connecting disparate actors. For example, Microsoft's Windows platform coordinates a three-sided market connecting computer users, application developers, and hardware manufacturers. In contrast, Apple's iOS platform connects users and application developers but maintains a monopoly over hardware manufacturing.

In line with Archer Buissink (2023) who discusses the concept of the "machine system" in the context of digital labor platforms and algorithms. Buissink references Marx's view that the cooperation of machines is not the end point of mechanization but rather part of a machine system involving various complementary machines. As this system develops, the coordination facilitated by the transmitting mechanism becomes crucial to production, restructuring the process and orienting it around the chain of machines necessary to transform raw materials into products. This restructuring significantly impacts the role of labor in large-scale industry. The machine system creates an objective production organization that confronts workers, as the logic of machine processes shapes the labor process rather than workers' subjectivity. Workers become "living appendages" of the machine system, aiding the movements of machines that cannot be fully automated. This is the basis of the real subsumption of labor, where machines, built by labor, appear as its masters. Marx's conception of power extends beyond individuals and class, including things and social forms, such as machinery.

Regarding the Marxian concepts of concrete labor (the specific, tangible work performed) and abstract labor (the generalized, value-producing aspect of labor), the author of this paper suggests that platform capitalism challenges this traditional separation. Platforms often commodify activities that were previously outside the realm of capitalist valorization, such as social interactions, leisure, and even cognitive processes. Integrating "vital faculties" into the value-creation process exemplifies biocognitive capitalism, where human cognitive and biological capacities become central to economic production.

In this context, platform capitalism is a paradigmatic example of biocognitive capitalism because it leverages human creativity, cooperation, and cognition as key resources. Platforms facilitate economic transactions and extract value from the data generated by users' interactions, effectively merging the roles of producer and consumer (the "prosumer"). This hybridization of supply and demand further dissolves traditional distinctions between labor types, aligning with the broader shifts in biocognitive capitalism.

On the other hand, Peck and Phillips (2020) situate platform capitalism within Braudel's concept of the antimarket, which is characterized by monopolization, concentrated power, and regulatory evasion. This perspective challenges the mainstream view of platforms as purely technological innovations with revolutionary significance. Instead, it emphasizes platform capitalism's historical and geographical context, highlighting its role in broader processes of financialization and neoliberalization. By framing platform capitalism as part of the antimarket, Peck and Phillips draw attention to the monopolistic tendencies and the concentration of economic and political power within these platforms. 

David W. Hill (2021) explores the phenomenological encounter of receiving an Amazon delivery at home, highlighting the vulnerability of moral responsibility in the context of data and logistical trajectories. He references Virilio's argument in "Open Sky" (2008b) that digital media can lead to urban inactivity and decouple lived experience from shared proximity. Although this argument requires caveats, it helps identify events in everyday life marked by a diminishment of the lifeworld.

The delivery of an Amazon package exemplifies the brief annulment of the home front as a threshold and the withholding of hospitality as its hinterland. Delivery drivers operate under stressful conditions, and their work often occurs in obscure spaces, hidden from those receiving the goods. The fleeting encounter at the doorstep is laden with moral meaning that often goes unacknowledged.

The doorstep marks a separation between intimate and social space, standing at the crossroads of hospitality and separation. The logistics worker's arrival and departure are choreographed by data and logistical trajectories, overshadowing the moral trajectory of the encounter. The habit formation of receiving delivery notifications and confirmation emails redirects attention to the interface, delocalizing the experience of receiving goods and diminishing the moral encounter with the logistics worker.

Data and logistics trajectories occupy the same space, forming a composite geography that shapes the subject-in-motion. While facilitating the platform as an economic entity, they often diminish moral experience. Infrastructure spaces, such as logistics cities and free ports, operate outside of but in conjunction with the state, creating spaces of exemption from moral responsibility. However, moral existence resists standardization and authority, remaining fragile and easily diminished.

The author of this paper further emphasizes how platforms derive significant monetary power not only from their intangible assets, like data, but also from financial mechanisms such as the ownership and exchange of non-reproducible assets (e.g., securities, shares, real estate)—sub-section 2.2. The role of the financial market in money creation, financing, and as a valorisation measure highlights the influence of practices like share buybacks, which inflate asset values and attract investor demand, contributing to financial speculation and the risk of economic bubbles. Additionally, the sub-section underscores the macroeconomic implications of financial markets, particularly their impact on income distribution through distorted financial multipliers and the erosion of public welfare systems. It is also illustrated in Figure 1. The first 8 companies with the highest Market Cap (Feb. 2025), the dominance of platform companies in global financial markets, as evidenced by their massive market capitalizations, which rival or exceed the GDPs of entire nations.

Sub-section 3.1. A new concept of productive activity and the subjectivation of labour, highlights how platform capitalism dissolves traditional distinctions between labor and leisure, embedding all facets of human existence into economic production. Its redefinition of productive activity and labor by embedding human life itself into the valorization process is characterized by:

1. Biocognitive and Relational Faculties as Core: In platform capitalism, human cognitive and relational abilities are central to creating value. This means that aspects of life previously considered outside the economic sphere—like social interactions, emotions, and creativity—are now commodified and integrated into production.
2. Commodification of Life: Life, being inherently individual, becomes a direct target for capitalist valorization. At the same time, the cooperative and social nature of human existence makes social cooperation and reproduction key factors of production. These are dynamic and abundant resources, unlike traditional inputs like raw materials.
3. Four Temporal Categories of Human Life:

• Labour (labor): Time deemed "productive" in the traditional sense, such as formal employment.
• Work (opus): Time spent pursuing personal aspirations, creativity, or pleasure.
• Idleness (otium): Time dedicated to relationships, play, communication, and social reproduction.
• Rest (quĭes): Time necessary for survival, like eating and sleeping.

4. Historical Shift in Productivity:

• In the Fordist era, only labor time was considered productive and remunerated.
• With cognitive capitalism (1990s), activities related to learning, leisure, and collaboration began to be seen as productive. This era introduced hybrid work forms and blurred the lines between working and non-working time.

5. Life as a Production Mechanism: In today's biocognitive capitalism, platforms organize and monetize all aspects of daily life, whether on the producer or consumer side. This means that life itself, in its entirety, is directly placed at value.

Overall, the essay is well-informed and intellectually provocative, with sections that articulate advanced theoretical constructs (e.g., “life subsumption,” “network value,” “the communism of capital”) in accessible prose. The concluding sections on policy alternatives (platform cooperativism, open commons) and digital inequality are particularly valuable.

Strengths

• The essay provides an innovative conceptualization of value in platform capitalism, moving from traditional labour value to “life-value.”
• It introduces underexplored tensions between social and environmental sustainability in digital ecosystems.
• The articulation of the financial underpinnings of platform capitalism (e.g., buybacks, asset inflation, monopolistic rents) is compelling and well-grounded.
• The writing is fluid, and the structure—while non-traditional—supports a narrative logic aligned with a theoretical essay.

Minor Revisions Suggested

1. Clarify Methodological Framing
   While the manuscript is meant to be an essay, an explicit note in the introduction regarding its nature (theoretical-conceptual, not empirical) would help align reader expectations. A brief mention that this is a “conceptual contribution to the socio-economic literature on sustainability” would be beneficial.
2. Integrate Previous Research Thoughtfully
   I suggest the author briefly reference their previous study on Cognitive Capitalism (perhaps in section 2.2 or 3.3), particularly the panel data showing the link between welfare state investment and the value of intangible capital. That study complements the theoretical stance here and would enrich the paper’s policy outlook. For instance, a phrase like:

“As previously shown in an empirical investigation on cognitive capitalism and welfare systems (Fumagalli & Lucarelli, 2019), the accumulation of intangible capital—central to platform capitalism—is closely linked to past public investments in education and health.”

This would strengthen continuity and show theoretical-practical alignment.

1. Revisit the Environmental Section’s Balance
   The discussion in Section 5.2 is quite nuanced but could benefit from an additional sentence distinguishing between efficiency gains and rebound effects—i.e., how digital platforms may reduce physical resource use but lead to overall higher energy demand due to rebound and scale.

Optional Suggestions

• Consider introducing a table or figure contrasting the three types of platforms (traditional, cooperatives, commons-based), possibly inspired by Fuster Morell et al. (2020). This could visually support the policy discussion in section 5.1.
• A concluding paragraph highlighting actionable directions (e.g., support for platform cooperativism, digital rights, inclusive innovation) would tie theory to practice more firmly, especially helpful for a journal oriented toward policy impact.
• Figure 1 on line 134 is a Table and not a figure. Please amend accordingly.
• There is a double full-stop on the starting line 416 after the word “devices”.
• Add a full-stop ending to the first paragraph of Section 3. The metamorphosis of the capital-labour relationship: life-value as a source of surplus value on line 158.
• Some words may be challenging to interpret for an audience that is not of your nationality, like ‘extrinsicisation,’ (…is pure extrinsicisation of human labour-power), ‘invisibilising’ (…to the point of invisibilising labour.) and ‘invisibilisation’ (…in the face of an increasing invisibilisation of paid employment.) Please try to clear the meaning of these words to a worldwide audience.

Final Evaluation

This paper makes a compelling and original contribution to the literature on digital capitalism and sustainability. Its strong theoretical foundation, combined with a critical political economy perspective, will be of interest to readers working across economic sociology, digital governance, and environmental policy. With slight refinements, it will be ready for publication.

Given the strength of the text, I only suggest minor revisions focused on clarity, framing, and integration of existing research by the same author.

REFERENCES:

Boyer, R. (2022). Platform capitalism: a socio-economic analysis, Socio-Economic Review, Volume 20, Issue 4, October 2022, pp. 1857–1879, https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwaa055

Buissink, A. (2023). The Machine System of Digital Labor Platforms and the Algorithm as Transmitting Mechanism. Rethinking Marxism, 35(1), 8–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/08935696.2022.2159718

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

A professional polishing service or, alternatively, a friend's collaboration would be greatly appreciated.

Author Response

I thanks the refeeres for their contribution and suggestions. I rewrote most of the paper, by checking the language with a mother tongue reader. I introduced a final paragraphs as conclusion and in the first a brief analysis of the literature, as requested.

I have to say that this paper is a theoretical paper and it could be difficult to insert concrete case-studies. There 'll be the opportunity for a further research.  I added the references proposed

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

No comments.