9. Conclusion

This chapter delves into the transformative impact of digital technology on the relationship between capital and labour within China's burgeoning platform-based food-delivery sector. It highlights the use of sophisticated algorithms by platforms to exert control and extract surplus labour from rural migrants, leading to persistently precarious working conditions. The chapter also explores the multifaceted forms of resistance employed by workers, both at an everyday level and through collective action on platforms like TikTok. It reveals that despite the challenges posed by algorithmic management, workers are finding innovative ways to challenge and subvert these controls. The chapter also discusses the role of the Chinese state in shaping and exacerbating the precarity experienced by platform drivers. It makes significant theoretical and empirical contributions to the existing literature on digital labour, algorithmic management, and resistance strategies. The chapter concludes that while digital technology has transformed the labour process, it has also created new opportunities for worker resistance and collective action.