Big Brother and the beauty contest: Power and evaluation on sharing-economy platforms

Abstract

This paper looks at the decentralized evaluation systems implemented on sharing-economy platforms. These systems are studied as apparatuses of power according to the Foucauldian approach. The purpose of this article is to understand whether and how evaluation systems influence platform users’ behaviors, and to offer new explanations of the standardization of behaviors displayed on those platforms. We conduct a single case study of the BlaBlaCar carpooling system, adopting a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews with BlaBlaCar users. We emphasize that users embed the evaluation systems in their behaviors in quite different ways: beyond the fear of being sanctioned, it is because users rely on the rating system to envision themselves, and to perceive and differentiate others, that the system becomes influential. As users are differently governed by the evaluation system, the latter indirectly strengthens and protects the most experienced ones.