On-demand delivery platforms have become a common feature of urban economies across the globe. Noted for their hyper-outsourced, “lean” business models and reliance on independent contractors, these companies evade traditional employer obligations while still controlling workers through complex algorithmic management techniques. Using food delivery platform Deliveroo as a case-study, this paper investigates the diverse array of practices that on-demand workers carry out in order to enact this new platform labor arrangement in different spatial contexts. One of us conducted an auto-ethnographic project, working as a Deliveroo Rider in Nijmegen and Berlin for a period of nine months. Additionally, we interviewed 13 fellow platform workers. The findings reveal the motley, contingent, and conditional ways in which on-demand labor comes together on the ground. The paper concludes with discussing the uneven distribution of these practices across locations and social groups, and the sometimes contradictory impacts they have on the structure of platform labor.

按需交付平台已成为全球城市经济的共同特征。这些公司因其超外包的“精益”业务模型和对独立承包商的依赖而著称，它们回避了传统的雇主义务，同时仍通过复杂的算法管理技术来控制工人。本文使用食品配送平台Deliveroo作为案例研究，研究了按需工人为了在不同的空间环境中制定这种新的平台劳动力安排而进行的各种实践。我们中的一个人进行了一项人种志研究项目，在奈梅亨和柏林担任Deliveroo Rider，工作了9个月。此外，我们采访了13位平台工作人员。调查结果揭示了杂色，或有，和有条件的方式将按需劳动力集中在一起。本文最后讨论了这些实践在各地和社会群体中分布不均，以及它们对平台劳动结构有时产生矛盾的影响。