Food and grocery delivery platforms claim they are no longer pushing workers to complete deliveries within 10 minutes. Yet the larger question remains unresolved: Can delivery workers truly escape the pressure of time-bound labour in a fiercely competitive platform economy? Whether in product deliveries, ride-hailing services, or customer support systems, digital platforms continue to operate on the logic of speed and constant availability. The modern platform economy is fundamentally built upon compressing time and space to maximise profits.

This logic is not entirely new. Karl Marx, in his theory of surplus value, and David Harvey in The Limits to Capital (1982) and The Condition of Postmodernity (1989), explained how capitalism seeks to reduce the time required for the circulation of commodities and capital. Technological advancements have intensified this tendency by enabling faster production, delivery, and labour extraction. The platform economy is an example of this. However, amid increasing technological surveillance and algorithmic management, can workers’ dignity, identity, social security,........

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