Introduction. Digital labor and crisis of the wage labor system

In this introduction the editors of the Special Issue of Sociologia del lavoro devot-ed to digital labor and the crisis of the wage-labor system, analyse recent trends in the scholarship of platform capitalism in the aftermath of the pandemic outbreak. Platforms are not only a type of business model – they have become a crucial in-frastructure around which society reorganizes itself. They extract value not only from traditional labor activities, but also from the social cooperation. Their opera-tions permeate even private spaces and turn social ties such as kinship, friendship, and sexuality into complex monetization schemes. This process represents a depar-ture from the salary institution, where identity was mostly linked to the position occupied by each individual with respect to work and wages. Ultimately, the hid-den dimension of digital capitalism is represented by automation which, contrary to the prevailing opinion, does not mark the decline of human labor. A huge amount of data, and data work, is required to deploy platforms’ algorithms. Such work is performed by under- and micro-paid remote providers, often residing in low-income countries. Even if platform capitalism appears stronger since the Covid-19 outbreak, it is far from mastering the global challenges it triggers. As its contradictions become apparent, new struggles of digital workers become more visible and better organized.