By : Tuhin Sarwar – Investigative journalist & author, Covering human rights,Rohingya crisis Climate change, Founder: Article Insight 🇧🇩ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-1651-5193 https://tuhinsarwar.com/
Digital Landlords and Algorithmic Tenants: Technological Rent, Surveillance, and Control in Bangladesh’s Platform Economy
Author’s Note:
This manuscript synthesizes original fieldwork and analysis by the author. An AI language model was employed as a collaborative tool for drafting and structural refinement under the author’s strict conceptual and editorial direction. All research questions, empirical data, interpretive claims, and scholarly argumentation remain the author’s sole intellectual responsibility.
Abstract
The platformization of service work in the Global South is not a simple import of Western business models but a transformative process that adapts to and exploits local conditions of informality and weak regulation. This article provides a comparative political economy analysis of ride-hailing in Bangladesh, centering on the dual mechanisms of technological rent extraction and algorithmic management. Through a qualitative study of Uber and Pathao, we theorize the platform as a digital landlord, whose primary asset—the proprietary marketplace—generates rent from driver-tenants. We identify a critical divergence in control logics: Uber’s regime is characterized by impersonal, data-driven extraction via an opaque global algorithm, while Pathao exemplifies localized gamification, deploying culturally resonant, behavior-shaping incentives that exploit socioeconomic precarity. Synthesizing Durand’s techno-feudalism with Zuboff’s surveillance capitalism, we demonstrate how continuous behavioral surveillance is not an endpoint but the operational backbone of rentier dominance. Crucially, the analysis foregrounds driver tactical agency—manifested in off-app transactions and collective strategizing—as a constitutive element of this digital class relation. The findings challenge narratives of entrepreneurial empowerment, recasting platformization in Bangladesh as a contested frontier for capital accumulation that deepens existing inequalities. We conclude with a strategic policy framework aimed at algorithmic transparency, reclassifying platform labor, and fostering data sovereignty.
Keywords: Technological Rent; Algorithmic Management; Digital Labor; Techno-feudalism; Surveillance Capitalism; Platform Economy; Global South; Bangladesh; Uber; Pathao; Gamification.
1. Introduction: The Alchemy of Digital Value Extraction
The meteoric rise of Uber and Pathao in Bangladesh’s major cities is heralded as a triumph of digital innovation and entrepreneurial access. This celebratory narrative, however, obscures a more fundamental restructuring: the creation of a digitally-mediated labor regime that systematically divorces income generation from social protection and worker autonomy. In contexts like Bangladesh—marked by vast informal economies, surplus labor, and nascent regulatory frameworks—digital platforms do not merely enter a market; they actively construct new political-economic relations optimized for value extraction. This article argues that the core dynamic of this transformation is the platform’s function as a digital landlord, extracting technological rent through its monopolistic control of market access, enforced via sophisticated algorithmic management systems.
The concept of technological rent shifts the analytical focus from productive labor to distributive control (Durand, 2020; Srnicek, 2017). Here, the platform’s application, data infrastructure, and network effects become a form of capital that commands a toll—a rent—from those who must use it to reach customers. This rentier logic is operationalized through algorithmic management, which automates the coordination, evaluation, and discipline of labor (Rosenblat & Stark, 2016). While these dynamics are global, their manifestation is profoundly local. A key gap in the literature is a granular, comparative analysis of how global platform logics (embodied by Uber) and localized platform adaptations (embodied by Pathao) enact control and extraction within the same socio-economic terrain. Does localization mitigate or simply reconfigure exploitation?
This study addresses this gap through an empirically grounded, theoretical investigation of ride-hailing in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It is guided by the following research questions:
- How do Uber and Pathao, as archetypes of global and local platforms, institutionalize technological rent extraction through their distinct algorithmic architectures?
- In what ways do local socio-economic conditions in Bangladesh shape the specific modalities of algorithmic control and their effectiveness?
- How do drivers exercise agency within these highly constrained digital work environments?
- What are the implications for labor rights and equitable development in the Global South?
By answering these questions, we contribute a critical, context-specific framework that moves beyond applying Western theories to instead engage them dialectically with Southern realities, revealing platformization as a contested site of class formation and struggle.
2. Theoretical Framework: Synthesizing Rentier and Surveillance Logics
To decipher the platform economy in Bangladesh, a synthesis of two macro-theoretical perspectives is necessary: one that explains the economic form of extraction (techno-feudalism) and another that explains its operational mechanism (surveillance capitalism).
2.1. Techno-Feudalism and the Rentier Platform
Cédric Durand’s (2020) concept of techno-feudalism provides a powerful lens for the Global South. It posits that digital platforms have created a new mode of domination based not on the ownership of industrial means of production, but on the control of essential digital infrastructures—the “land” of the 21st century. Platforms like Uber and Pathao establish private, sovereign economic territories. Access for workers is conditional upon surrendering a significant portion of their revenue as “rent” or commission. This relationship mirrors a feudal lord-vassal dynamic more than a classic capitalist wage-labor one. The platform, as digital landlord, provides the “land” (market access via the app) but assumes none of the risks of production (vehicle, fuel, maintenance), which are fully borne by the driver-tenant. The increasing commission rates reported by drivers signify the landlord’s unilateral power to raise the rent, a hallmark of rentier dominance.
2.2. Surveillance Capitalism as the Engine of Control
Shoshana Zuboff (2019) delineates surveillance capitalism as an economic order founded on the unilateral appropriation and commodification of human experience as behavioral data. In the ride-hailing context, every trip generates a rich stream of data not only on mobility but on driver performance, decision-making, and responsiveness under pressure. This behavioral surplus is fed back into the platform’s algorithms to optimize system efficiency—not for the driver’s benefit, but to maximize reliable service and, ultimately, platform yield (rent extraction). Algorithmic management is thus the instrumentalization of surveillance capitalism for labor control, transforming continuous monitoring into a tool for automated direction and discipline.
2.3. Synthesis: Surveillance for Rentier Ends
The originality of our framework lies in explicitly synthesizing these theories. We argue that in Bangladesh’s platform economy, surveillance capitalism serves techno-feudalism. The pervasive data extraction Zuboff identifies is not aimed primarily at predicting consumer behavior for advertising, but at perfecting the extraction of technological rent from labor. The rating system, GPS tracking, and trip metrics constitute a panoptic surveillance apparatus (Foucault, 1977) that minimizes transaction costs, ensures quality compliance, and disciplines the workforce—all to protect and enhance the platform’s rentier income stream. This synthesis allows us to analyze both the “what” (rent) and the “how” (surveillance-driven control) of platform power.
2.4. Accounting for Local Specificity and Agency
Western-derived theories risk overstating the totalizing power of platforms. Research in the Global South must account for local adaptation and worker agency (Graham & Anwar, 2019; Heeks et al., 2021). Platforms must adapt their control logics to local cultures, infrastructures, and labor markets. Concurrently, workers are not passive automatons but active agents who develop tactics of resistance (de Certeau, 1984) within the system’s constraints. Our study specifically investigates how Pathao’s “local algorithm” differs from Uber’s “global algorithm,” and how drivers’ pragmatic resistance shapes the actual experience of platform work.
3. Methodology: A Comparative Qualitative Approach
This research employs a comparative qualitative case study design (Yin, 2018) to achieve an in-depth, contextual understanding of two distinct yet co-existing platform models within Dhaka’s ride-hailing ecosystem.
3.1. Data Collection
Primary data was gathered through semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 20 active ride-hailing drivers, selected via purposive sampling (Patton, 2015) to ensure variation across platform use (Uber-only, Pathao-only, dual-app), vehicle type (car/motorcycle), and experience (6 months to 5+ years). Interviews, conducted in Bengali, explored themes of algorithmic control, income stability, working conditions, and coping strategies. All participants provided written informed consent; interviews were recorded, transcribed, and anonymized. Secondary data included analysis of platforms’ public terms of service and policy announcements.
3.2. Data Analysis
Transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006), following an iterative process of coding, theme development, and refinement. Analysis was abductive, moving between empirical data and the theoretical framework. Methodological triangulation between interview data and documentary sources enhanced analytical rigor and validity.
3.3. Ethical and Positionality Considerations
The study adhered to strict ethical protocols ensuring confidentiality, anonymity, and the right to withdraw. As an investigative journalist and researcher embedded in Bangladesh’s media landscape, the author’s positionality facilitated access and trust with drivers, while a reflexive approach was maintained to critically assess
Read more Full research :
Sarwar, T. (2026). A Comparative Analysis of Algorithmic Management and Technological Rent in the Ride.
Tuhin Sarwar Journalist .
