…, whether it is for pay or not. I argue that these more feminized, pink-collar corners of the internet are also part of broader gig and piecework economies and help broaden the definition of “tech worker,” which is still often perceived in narrow, masculinist terms. In general, home-based work ha…

I was interested in how these roles fit into “tech work” but that argument wasn’t actually made in the piece (which I’m linking to because I think it’s good, to be clear).

My instinct is that these piecework systems involve a vulture class (organizing capital), a tinkerer class (building the systems), and an exploited class (the gig workers, etc.). It’s right to question whether there’s a clear division of “tech skills” that we imagine defines the “tech workers” of the tinkerer class. The gig workers have to do a lot of stuff that involves those skills also, and there’s a good amount of system building that doesn’t involve “tech skills” at all. But analyzing “tech worker” maybe properly does involve limiting its scope to “builders of the system.” That’s a relevant category because… while interesting dynamics can arise contra system designers’ intent, the kind of systems that make up modern “tech” industries have very unilateral control. This is even more true when you start to follow the money. So in order to understand the power relations of tech, you need that concept at that scope.