Beyond Uber: what platform work really looks like in India

As digital labour platforms continue to expand across Asia, debates on the future of work often circle back to a familiar reference point: ride-hailing apps such as Uber. But focusing on one dominant model can obscure more than it reveals—particularly in countries like India, where platform work has taken on diverse forms across sectors such as home-based services, education, logistics, agriculture, and healthcare.

This was the central argument of a recent FutureWORKS Asia knowledge-sharing session by Dr. Aditi Surie of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, which examined how different types of labour platforms govern workers’ time, income, and behaviour. Rather than asking whether platform workers are “employees” or “independent contractors,” the session invited participants to look more closely at how platforms exercise control—and how that control shapes workers’ everyday experiences. Read more here