The Gig Is Up

Some of them drive, deliver, or do odd jobs for the likes of Uber, Deliveroo and TaskRabbit, while others carry out tasks online, adding human knowledge to algorithms. These gig workers are self-employed, getting paid per job by online platforms.

This accessible and wide-ranging documentary features several such workers, including Mitchell from Lagos in Nigeria doing AI jobs for Amazon; Californian Uber driver Annette, who’s becoming increasingly desperate as her earnings shrink; and Leila, a chain-smoking meal courier in Paris, who stands up for a coworker who died in a crash. In rapid succession, their painful tales of customer ratings, deactivations, and grueling work schedules are interspersed with analysis by tech journalists, experts, and entrepreneurs. They explain clearly and in detail how the gig economy works, and generously share their sometimes startling insights.

The Gig Is Up uses powerful images of dizzying quantities of discarded rental bikes in China to illustrate the arrogance of this so-called “platform capitalism.” Have the limits been reached or breached?