Buildings & Cities (Oct 2023)
Disruptive data: historicising the platformisation of Dublin’s taxi industry
Abstract
Social and economic change in the built environment is increasingly driven by processes of datafication. These often find expression through smart phone apps and private platforms that seek to upset the status quo by mediating consumer and producer interactions, and by monetising the data these produce. This paper uses the practice-oriented concept of ‘disruptive data’ to draw attention away from specific technologies and towards the broader political economic logics that underlie them. In so doing, disruption is reframed as a capitalist strategy for creating and capitalising on uncertainty. The rapid change to Dublin’s taxi industry over the past decade illustrates these dynamics. By following how ride-hailing apps, most notably Hailo, were introduced into and effected the city, the importance of regulatory context but also wider flows of data and capital are stressed. Data disruptions occur not at the level of the app or platform, but at the economic relations in which they are embedded. By paying attention to the historical details of data disruption, the specificities of change processes are revealed without losing track of their broader economic function. Policy relevance This research will be of interest to policymakers for explaining local-level innovation. The dominant narrative of disruption presents innovation as a technology-driven change process, dependent upon individual brilliance and breakthrough. However, what occurred in the Dublin taxi industry does not confirm this narrative. Instead, the Irish government regulated the market of drivers, and the infrastructural limits of the bus and taxi lanes encouraged some ride-hailing apps while discouraging others. This tight coupling between technology and its context is indicative of a change process of continuation rather than disruption, which is more amenable to government steering. Disruption certainly did occur in Dublin, but not as a result of individual innovation. Following the ride-hailing apps past their moment of market entrance to their poorly executed attempts to scale-up reveals the corporate and financial interests that oversee and capitalise upon data disruption.
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