The popular debate around digital platforms often focuses on the hegemonic role of a small number of big tech companies, from GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft) to Uber. Particularly in the Global South, the dominance of these companies has been framed within the paradigm of data or digital colonialism, which portrays the countries of the Majority World as mere sources of raw data and consumers of digital services from the Global North.

However, this perspective may overlook the heterogeneity among countries in the Majority World, particularly the power dynamics between Southern nations through digital technologies and the role of regional platforms from the Global South. While countries like Brazil and Haiti are subject to the dominance of major platforms from the Global North, such as those of Meta and Alphabet, significant differences exist in their technological autonomy, insertion into the international division of labor, and capacity to develop local platforms.

Indeed, a number of countries in the Global South are developing successful digital platforms in specific market segments. An illustrative case can be found in the contrast between two prominent platform labor markets—transportation and food delivery apps. In the transportation sector, Uber maintains a dominant position in the majority of Western national markets, although there are a few notable exceptions. One such example is the state-owned taxi app TaxiRio in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which facilitates the transportation of approximately one million passengers per month. However, it is the food delivery market that demonstrates a more pronounced presence of local platforms. Companies such as Brazil’s iFood and Colombia’s Rappi have achieved a dominant position in their respective domestic markets, while Yemeksepeti has emerged as a leading player in Turkey, to give some examples.

The study of these regional platforms—platforms created and operated within specific geographical regions—has so far focused on Asia, particularly on the expansion of Chinese platforms. Nevertheless, it is imperative to investigate and debate the rise of local platforms in other regions of the Global South, as this phenomenon introduces new complexities to the debate on platform capitalism(s) in the plural, emphasizing the need to consider the specific historical contexts of regional platformization. For instance, there are 27 platforms headquartered in Latin America with a market valuation exceeding US$1 billion, the majority of which are based in Brazil, which is one of the largest Southern hubs for platforms outside of Asia.

Therefore, it is imperative to investigate and debate the rise of local platforms in other regions of the Global South, as this phenomenon introduces new complexities to the debate on platform capitalism(s) in the plural, emphasizing the need to consider the specific historical contexts of regional platformization.

In recent years, an influential manifesto has called for the study of ‘Big Data from the South(s)‘, advocating for studies exclusively around local activist experiences as the foundations for a theory of “datafication of and in the South.” Conversely, in the context of numerous Latin American platforms with a market value exceeding 1 billion US dollars, my argument is that we urgently also need to study and discuss these platforms that we might call ‘Big Tech from the South’. The case of these companies, which are primarily based on precarious platform labor, demonstrates that not all domestic technological development from the Global South is inherently decolonial or emancipatory. This perception has significant political implications, which will be further explored in the conclusion.

One illustrative example of what I refer to as ‘Big Tech from the South’ is the Brazilian food delivery platform iFood. iFood, which was established in 2011, has a dominant presence in the Latin American delivery market, with a 39.2% market share and 43 million consumers. Additionally, it has 250,000 workers in 1,700 cities across five countries on the continent. It is the eighth most downloaded delivery app globally. Initially focused on fast food delivery, iFood has since expanded its offerings to include medical supplies, groceries, pet products, and department store items, including electronics.

iFood is under the control of the Brazilian investment group Movile and is headquartered in São Paulo. The company also concentrates its data infrastructure and research and development efforts in this city, employing 3,000 data scientists who are dedicated to analyzing the potential uses of the 20 billion data records generated monthly by the platform’s use. This includes the development of artificial intelligence solutions, for which the company invests US$1.5 billion per year.

This example challenges the perspective from digital colonialism and data imperialism studies that views all Global South countries as merely “a mine of low-yield data since it collects few […] and exploits them even less.” However, Latin American platforms still face significant barriers to expanding into the Global North’s markets. In iFood’s case, its focus is on dominating the Latin American market. As iFood’s CEO Bloisi states: “It is not about the rest of the world, it is about Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina. The key word is not global expansion; it is a strong ecosystem [for iFood].”

I posit that to comprehend platforms from the South, it is essential to mobilize Southern epistemologies, drawing upon thinkers who have historically sought to understand Latin America’s original insertion into global capitalism.

How do we understand this unequal and combined development that allows the emergence of large platforms in countries like Brazil, which, in particular markets, even surpass Northern Big Techs like Uber Eats, expelled from the Brazilian delivery market by iFood’s monopoly? I posit that to comprehend platforms from the South, it is essential to mobilize Southern epistemologies, drawing upon thinkers who have historically sought to understand Latin America’s original insertion into global capitalism.

Dependency Theory: Latin Americans Thinking Latin American Development

To examine the international expansion of iFood in Latin America, I delved into the works of scholars who, throughout the 20th century, sought to comprehend the unique attributes of the continent’s economic development. For example, in contrast to other colonized societies, such as the majority of African countries, some Latin American countries, such as Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, witnessed the emergence of relatively large and intricate industrial sectors during the 20th century. Nevertheless, none of these countries achieved socio-economic levels equivalent to those of North American or European societies, contrary to the expectation that industrialization would lead to overcoming underdevelopment.

The dependency theory, as formulated by Brazilian thinkers such as Ruy Mauro Marini and Vânia Bambirra, offers an intriguing interpretative lens in this context. Rather than viewing underdevelopment and development as distinct historical stages in a linear evolutionary perspective, dependency theory posits a dialectical unity between these two processes, organized around core-periphery relations. In an unequal and combined manner, some peripheral countries can modernize their economies, including incorporating advanced technologies in certain national sectors, without necessarily breaking away from their broader dependency on the capital, knowledge, and political power of developed countries.

One of the intrinsic contradictions inherent to this process is that the very limitation of the domestic market in dependent countries, where populations remain largely impoverished, exerts pressure on their companies to expand internationally. However, when these companies offer more technologically intensive services and products, they are unable to compete in the markets of developed countries with local industry. Consequently, they seek to gain a dominant position in neighboring markets, which are those of even more impoverished and weak countries. This process, elucidated herein in a simplified manner, was designated as “sub-imperialism” by Ruy Marini. This term describes the phenomenon of regional powers exerting influence over neighboring nations through the expansion of their capital, companies, and geopolitical and military resources, in a manner analogous to historical relationships between the Global North and the Global South.

It is called sub-imperialism because countries like Brazil are not rising imperialisms competing with the main imperialist powers for the global market but rather subordinate forms of local imperialism that complement the interests of the North in their region.

It is called sub-imperialism because countries like Brazil are not rising imperialisms competing with the main imperialist powers for the global market but rather subordinate forms of local imperialism that complement the interests of the North in their region. This dynamic persists as long as international capitals tolerate competition with sub-imperialist capitals in the regional market, and central capitalist states recognize the political relevance of sub-imperialist powers within their spheres of influence.

Introducing Platform Sub-Imperialism

If the expansion of Northern Big Tech has been described as data colonialism or imperialism, I am inspired by Marini to describe the continental expansion of Latin American platforms like iFood as platform sub-imperialism, particularly those based on Brazil’s distinctive role in Latin America. Therefore, I suggest the term “platform sub-imperialism” to describe the emergence of certain Southern countries as regional hubs for data and capital accumulation through the expansion of their platforms into neighboring countries. This positioning represents an intermediate position between hegemonic nations and “digital colonies” in the international division of platform labor, data accumulation, and technological dependency.

If the expansion of Northern Big Tech has been described as data colonialism or imperialism, I am inspired by Marini to describe the continental expansion of Latin American platforms like iFood as platform sub-imperialism, particularly those based on Brazil’s distinctive role in Latin America.

To gain a deeper understanding of the privileges afforded to a sub-imperialist power within its region, we will focus on the case of Brazil. Since the 1980s, Brazil has utilized regulations to mandate that foreign companies invest in local digital infrastructure and computing capacity as a prerequisite for market access. This partial technology transfer is combined with the fact that Brazil, alongside other BRICS countries, has more domestic capital formation and receives more foreign investment than all other developing countries combined. As a result, it concentrates 36% of Big Data investment in Latin America, possesses the tenth-largest supercomputing capacity in the world, and employs two million tech workers, including data scientists and software developers—more than its contingent of 1.4 million platform workers.

The combination of precarious labor and skilled tech workers is a key factor in the success of platforms like iFood. On the one hand, Latin American platforms offer the worst working conditions in the world, maximizing their profits through eliminating fixed working hours and wages, imposing costs on workers, and failing to provide a wage that meets basic standards of living. This reality demonstrates that while platform labor is associated with precarization worldwide, geopolitical inequalities between core and peripheral countries persist in the international division of labor—a core concept of dependence theory.

On the other hand, the originality of iFood and other local platforms is that they manage to capture and process at least some of the data produced by Latin American workers locally, contributing to local technological development. For example, São Paulo, home to iFood and most Brazilian platforms, is a major concentration point for Latin American data flows and is the only city in South America among the top 25 global hubs for data flows.

Therefore, the expansion of platforms from sub-imperialist countries into neighboring regions means expanding regional data accumulation under their control. They extend data production of precarious labor throughout their sphere of influence while concentrating data analysis and the resulting knowledge at their headquarters. This process depends on and reinforces their regional concentration of big data infrastructure, research investment, and tech workers capable of transforming vast amounts of data into useful information.

Political Consequences

The acknowledgment that not all countries in the Global South are mere digital colonies devoid of all technological and economic significance does not negate the necessity of critiquing the hegemonic dominance of Northern Big Tech in digital markets. Instead, it calls for a similar examination of platforms based in Southern countries, which rely on the reproduction of exploitative labor relations to fuel their growth.

This is relevant given that, in the name of sovereignty and national development, numerous past political regimes in Latin America—including those of left-wing governments—have prioritized combating foreign dominance over local markets by fostering the growth of national champion companies, despite considerations pertaining to their environmental and social impact. This has included, in some instances, even the provision of state incentives to facilitate their sub-imperialist expansion into neighboring countries. It is imperative that Latin American civil society does not allow this to happen again, with platforms based on precarious labor, like iFood, being supported by states, like Brazil, simply because they have become national ‘Big Tech’.

It is imperative that Latin American civil society does not allow this to happen again, with platforms based on precarious labor, like iFood, being supported by states, like Brazil, simply because they have become national ‘Big Tech’.

In contrast, segments of Brazilian civil society have sought to propose public policies that strengthen public, cooperative, and worker-owned platforms, in what they call a solidarity digital economy, based on fair work practices and oriented toward the common good—reviving another epistemological and political innovation from Latin America, the solidarity economy.

In this context, recognizing the emergence of Big Tech in the South also points to the fact that there is not only precarious platform labor in the Majority World; there are also tech workers whose rising struggles and organization—less discussed and visible than those of their colleagues in the Global North—have the potential to influence the future of their societies by promoting alternative models of ownership, governance, and labor regimes in the platform economy.

To illustrate, my most recent research has focused on the socio-technical imaginaries of Brazilian tech workers who seek to both challenge the algorithmic biases of corporate platforms from an internal perspective and develop their own platforms, based on their values. In the case of food delivery, for example, alternative cooperative platforms are being developed in response to iFood, such as the Brazilian women’s and trans people’s bike delivery cooperative, Senoritas Courier’s platform. However, this is already a topic for another article, in which the algorithms of the oppressed that are emerging in response to Big Tech in the South can be explored in greater depth.