Ilia Bronskiy/Unsplash

The three cities pose ideal cases for our investigation for several reasons. First, they are large enough to provide a population size and density attractive to platform operators. Their size ensures a diverse and dynamic demand for services as well as a constant supply of workers.

Second, the comparative wealth of their populations makes them ideal laboratories for platform operators to test new services and business models. Thus, they provide a wide variety of platform providers.

Third, the three cities make ideal comparative cases, as they show similarities due to their geographic location in Western Europe and their shared German speaking cultural background, while being embedded in three different national regulatory frameworks. This allows exploring how regulations impact on the development of platform markets (cf. Broecke 2021, Pärli 2019).

Fourth, the chosen field sites broaden the existing literature which is largely based on empirical material from English speaking contexts in North America, the UK and Australia.