Plataformização e capitalismo de vigilância: O caso do iFood no contexto da nova modernidade

Abstract

The research explores consumption on platforms like iFood, using the theories of new modernity from authors like Baudrillard, Lipovetsky, and Bauman, while updating them to the platformization context. Platforms have become central to social organization and surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2021), acting as infrastructures that connect users and partners through data collection and processing (Poell; Nieborg; Dijck, 2020). Platforms like iFood operate hierarchical networks, unilaterally controlled and supported by robust cloud infrastructure, transforming the surrounding social and cultural practices. Platformization reflects a new phase of capitalism, centralizing control and commercial exploitation of the network, with surveillance capitalism emerging as an accumulation model based on data collection. For Zuboff (2021), this power, termed “instrumentarianism,” uses three main strategies: data capture (“tuning”), behavior prediction and modification (“herding” and “conditioning”), and digital environment personalization to influence users’ decisions. On iFood, affordances like reviews and filters encourage practical and personalized consumption, while the company unilaterally sets the rules, exerting control over consumers, couriers, and partner establishments. A questionnaire conducted in 2022 confirmed these aspects, indicating that algorithmic mediation influences user behavior, with users appreciating iFood’s convenience but noting high prices, difficulty contacting sellers, and courier precarization. Thus, consumption and labor mediated by platforms like iFood form part of the same platformization logic, aimed at creating value within surveillance capitalism. In line with Dardot and Laval, the research suggests that the contemporary individual is simultaneously a consumer and a producer, adopting the role of “entrepreneur of the self” and operating within a device that promotes performance and personal satisfaction to the benefit of platforms.