‘They alter the structure whenever they want to’, one rider claims. ‘And they have so many conditions. If we don’t log in for a week, our basic daily incentive changes. Recently, they decreased the overall incentive for 15 orders by 20 percent.’ Another rider, who is slightly older than the rest of the group, adds, ‘it seems like, the longer I work this job, the less I earn.’

Platform-based applications are significantly impacting the way we live in cities. Amongst other things, these platforms promise to improve our lives through easy access to on-the-go transportation, food, entertainment, friendships and dates. As well, some platform operators, including Facebook, Google and Amazon, are taking on the role of large-scale urban developers, seeking to apply their data-based knowhow to other economic areas such as housing, education, work and health care. In this doing this, we see platform monopolising and monetising the various strata of ‘access,’ beyond the realm of convenience. New spatial typologies and cultural imaginaries are being employed to prepare the ground for this massive shift of authority over urban development. What we could soon be experiencing is an urban environment in which any form of participation in public life is contingent on subscribing to commercial platform services. On the surface, platforms pride themselves on substantially improving access to a myriad of things, offering flexible channels for direct and easy connection, undisturbed by the inertia of old-school hierarchical corporations and institutional bureaucracy. But they do so by deploying mechanisms of exclusion, limiting the sphere of interaction to selected partners and externalising all other aspects that are not of immediate relevance. In other words, instead of eliminating these old hierarchies and institutions, they simply replace them. What will be the future urban co-existence if platform services turn access into the most highly priced form of capital? In other words, how can we then sustain access to access?