Mercado ¿Libre? in Argentina. The relative autonomy of users-suppliers over their own work

Abstract

This essay, which takes place in a context of the rise of digital consumer platforms and the growth of e-commerce, aims to reflect on how the form of technology relativizes the autonomy of Mercado Libre users- suppliers from their own work and how their relationships and sociability are built. For that purpose, a critical position is adopted about the relationship between technology and society around the social function of platforms, the use of data and algorithms and the right to digital disconnection. The arguments will be presented through the analysis of dimensions such as social values, political dimension, social imaginary and archetype in the collective memory, as well as the reconstruction of the links between user- supplier and user-customer and user-supplier and platform. This reflection becomes relevant in a scenario of the platformization of the economy that has focused the interest of academic production on the working relationships of consumer platforms on demand and that barely enters those of electronic commerce.