The Problem of Free Time in Platform Capitalism

The New Employment is Paid Leisure or “Nudging-Compulsory” Leisure

Abstract

In the modern world, fundamental changes in the form and specifics of labor are taking place: automation, digitalization, precarization, the transition to remote forms of work, etc. Particular attention is drawn to the prospect of the so-called post-labor society, in which the labor participation of the individual will be significantly reduced. In the article, the author refers to the concepts of late digital capitalism, in which the main market share is occupied by digital platform companies that use the “digital activity” of users as a source of additional income, in order to analyze the social characteristics of "digital employment", which, on the one hand, is a pastime in the network, which today is called “digital leisure”, and on the other hand, activities aimed at earning money, which creates terminological difficulties and semantic confusion in the discourse about the post-labor society. As a result of the analysis, the author defines such activities as “paid leisure” or “nudging-compulsory” leisure in the form of exploitation. The author shows that “paid leisure”, acquiring economic grounds, can become the main activity that appropriates the free time of an individual. The article discusses the possible social risks of spreading the practice of “paid leisure”. The author analyzes the possible reasons that may affect just such a preference of individuals in choosing activities to fill their free time, and finds them in the inherent socio-economic inequality of the “post-labor society”, due to its functioning and organization, ideology and culture. As a result, the author comes to the conclusion that the imposition of paid digital leisure (nudging) will eventually lead to the fact that leisure itself, as a form of employment, will become a full-fledged digital labor. Under such conditions, a person is increasingly losing his freedom, becoming involved in new forms of dependence, which leads to the emergence of a new type of labor and economic slavery.