The historical development of technology has never been neutral or inevitable. As all other developments, it too is bound to its context. It is helpful therefore to grasp the platform economy as evolving in relation to the political–economic, social and technological conditions. Before delving into the world of workers, I historicize and contextualize three different generations of platforms. I begin with tracing the first generation of platforms during the dot-com era in the 1990s, evolving from the creation and wider dissemination of the Internet. Following the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, technological conditions resulted in a user-friendlier Internet while political–economic conditions pushed a second generation platforms to search for a new source of financial capital. As changes in the wider conditions also bring about changes in the platform economy, I finally delve into third generation platforms that erupted after the 2006–8 economic crisis. This chapter ultimately demonstrates that each kind of platform, with its own way of organizing workers, has organically developed in relation to the wider conditions within capitalist temporality.

A brief history of the Internet: its creation and dissemination

As an ever-growing decentralized network of tubes, circuits and packets of data that connect computerized devices globally, the Internet provides the digital infrastructure necessary for the creation, development and expansion of platforms. A series of conditions coincided at a very specific historical time and place. The US government responded to the political conditions of the time by pouring massive amounts of funding into its research and initial development. This had been taking place in a context where, technologically speaking, the US had both an extensive telecommunications network and firms that specialized in and produced the technical equipment necessary for the infrastructure of the network, such as routers. The requisite economic conditions were also present, given the wide availability of venture capital (VC) essential for the dot-com era in the 1990s. These combined conditions would prove crucial for the Internet’s later proliferation and commercialization beyond its initial military purpose and restrictions.