From On-Time Delivery To Process Failure:A Study Of The Process Of Constructing The Time Order In The Food-Delivery Platforms

At present,the network of actors within the takeaway ecology is distinctly heterogeneous.The takeaway practices of multiple actors continuously construct the temporal order of the platform,and the temporal order of the takeaway platform is also shaping the network relations of all actors.From the perspective of social time,this paper uses actor network theory to map out how multiple actors construct the temporal order in takeaway practices and how this temporal order shapes the practices and relationships of each actor,revealing the topology of the current power relations in the takeaway ecology by going deeper and deeper from the surface to the inside.This study uses participant observation and in-depth interviews as the main research methods,and the author selects two head instant delivery platform companies(S and L)located in Beijing and Shanghai as field sites,and enters into the process of take-out practices of the two platforms as an intern to form field notes respectively.Meanwhile,the author interviewed 61 actors with different identities to record what time conflicts the interviewees encountered in their respective takeaway practices,how they coordinated their strategies,and how they related to other actors to obtain a series of interview data.The study found that the actors in take-out practices are full of heterogeneity and generally contain three categories:(i)core human actors such as consumers,merchants,and riders,(ii)intra-organizational human actors such as sites,third-party labor companies,platform headquarters staff,and regional operations staff,and(iii)non-human actors of algorithms,terminals,and hardware products.In the platform-driven network interaction,algorithmic time becomes the basic timepiece for measuring on-time performance,and the platform derives rich temporal experience based on algorithmic time,which also counteracts the continuous optimization and iteration of algorithmic time.However,when the habit based on an order fails and the rule based on an entitlement fails,on-time performance can no longer become a compulsory passage point linking various actors,and the failed transitive process reconstructs the temporal order of process failure.The power relations formed by the network of actors are only transient,expedient,and reshapeable.But when time becomes a symbol of power,takeaway platforms continue to revitalize their own dominant network relations through embedded time regulation,value-differential time arbitrage,and open-ended time negotiation.As platform-led takeaway practices continue to shape actors’ perceptions of time,the platforms themselves have become a digital infrastructure,balancing internal development dynamism and external open regulation with their non-bureaucratic transitive resilience.How to make good use of this source of dynamism and develop platform openness and cooperativism in the Chinese context would be more constructive questions.