Some workers say on-demand home services startup Urban Company, which helped Indian women enter the gig economy, pushed them out for not meeting steep targets
Home services platform Urban Company helped Indian women get into the gig economy. Now they say it's setting impossible targets and then abandoning them. X: @varshaabansal , @peterguest , @ashiquealit , @varshaabansal , @varshaabansal , and @varshaabansal X: Varsha Bansal / @varshaabansal : Gamified stock options: UC was the first Indian co. to give stock options to partners & made it seem like it's guaranteed. But they have gamified to the extent that it's almost impossible to achieve. One worker called it a marathon, another said it's not worth working so hard [image] Peter Guest / @peterguest : Urban Company was supposed to be different from other gig platforms, offering workers—particularly women—high-quality, flexible work. Now it's on the classic enshittification cycle, using unattainable targets and dumping workers. @VarshaaBansal in @WIRED https://www.wired.com/... Ashique Ali T / @ashiquealit : The recent article by wired is rightly pointing out the current scenario: digital labour platform is setting impossible targets for workers & then abandoning them. The situation demands state intervention in favour of labour. https://www.wired.com/... Varsha Bansal / @varshaabansal : Mysterious death: Workers received a video of the death of a UC beautician who allegedly took her own life coz her a/c was blocked & she couldn't earn anymore. Due to the isolation created b/w gig workers by platforms they haven't been able to figure out exactly what went down [image] Varsha Bansal / @varshaabansal : Urban Company Was the Last Good Gig Work Company in India My investigation on the recent spate of protests by Urban Company workers and a mysterious death. Here are three exclusive details 🧵 https://www.wired.co.uk/... Varsha Bansal / @varshaabansal : On July 10, UC launched an in-app video for partners, part of which I have watched, where the founder Abhiraj Bhal explains their reasons for introducing these strict rules. They are gonna be stricter by December, under their improvement plan called Project Shakti [image]
Context & Ripple Effects
Urban Company was previously portrayed as creating an unusually large entry point for women into India’s gig workforce through its service-partner model. The allegations now test whether that access remains durable when platform rules and rewards are tightened.
The dispute fits a wider pattern in Indian platform work: workers’ accounts have been blocked after speaking out about conditions, while workers elsewhere have sought independent ways to audit algorithmic pay and performance calculations.
First-order effects
- Women service partners who cannot meet the alleged targets risk losing access to Urban Company’s marketplace, rewards, or both; those claims have already prompted worker protests.
- Project Shakti’s planned stricter partner rules put Urban Company’s operating model and its relationship with its service workforce under immediate scrutiny.
Second-order effects
- If partners view targets and stock-option rewards as unattainable, retention and recruitment may become harder for a platform whose earlier growth was tied to expanding gig-work opportunities for women.
- Other Indian gig platforms face added pressure to make account actions, performance metrics, and incentive conditions more legible, especially where workers depend on a single app for demand.
Third-order effects
- The case points to a broader conflict in platform labor: systems designed to standardize service quality and utilization can also concentrate economic control in opaque metrics and account access.
- If such disputes persist, gig-work growth may be judged less by onboarding alone than by whether workers can sustainably retain access, earnings, and recourse under changing rules.
The trend: India’s gig platforms are moving from expansion-through-onboarding toward a sharper contest over algorithmic management, incentives, and worker protections.