Beyond the Illusion of Choice: Responsive Autonomy and Worker Agency in Platform Labor

ABSTRACT

Digital labor platforms present an “autonomy paradox” where flexibility is inextricably intertwined with algorithmic control. While existing structuralist accounts often dismiss worker autonomy as an illusion, they struggle to explain the persistent practical agency exercised by workers. Based on long‐term fieldwork, including 52 interviews and several months of participant observation in China, this article develops “responsive autonomy” as a framework to capture the dynamic interplay between algorithmic management and worker agency. We identify three primary mechanisms through which riders negotiate platform power: cognitive adjustment, strategic response, and meaning‐making. These mechanisms converge in practice to form three distinct patterns of agency, namely partial, coordinated, and frustrated, revealing that worker agency is not a monolithic state but a situated and evolving process. Our findings move beyond the dominant “control–resistance” binary, arguing that the autonomy paradox is sustained not only by platform design but also by workers' active engagement, which paradoxically reinforces platform logics. This research offers a non‐deterministic lens for rethinking the labor process in the digital age.