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Indonesia’s gig work tech resistance
Tuyul apps and the IT of the Road.
Gojek is a $10B Indonesian “super app” that combines “Postmates, Apple Pay, Venmo, and Uber” serviced by an army of ojol — drivers — who are subjected to all the high-handed algorithmic horrors that gig workers everywhere suffer through.
But Indonesian ojol aren’t helpless before their apps; a legion of toolsmiths produce, share, sell and support “tuyul apps” named for “a child-like spirit in Indonesian folklore that helps his human master earn money by stealing,” which modify the Gojek app.
As part of her MIT PhD, Rida Qadri studied Gojek, ojol and tuyul apps, and her account of the grey-market Gojek ecosystem for Motherboard is riveting.
Tuyul apps are wildly innovative and diverse, from tools to magnify text so older ojol drivers who can read the tiny default app’s text, to filters that allow drivers and riders to preview jobs, avoiding the algorithmic penalty for turning down a job after accepting it.
