ABSTRACT
In this study, we address the development of the application-based transportation service organization Uber, which has caused a direct disturbance to the taxi company Blue Bird, which had dominated for decades in Jakarta. Uber is considered illegal by the government due to its noncompliance to the existing regulations. Uber uses informational ways and forms a network society, which is a concept proposed by Manuel Castells (1996). Uber seizes the consumption space of taxi users and opens up the employment production space in Jakarta’s transportation industry. The data were obtained by ethnographic approach (field study), including in-depth interviews with the drivers and users of Uber, and literature review on the topic of Uber controversy in mass media. The result of the research shows the presence of loopholes, which are not in accordance with the pattern of the network society and informational capitalism proposed by Castells. Uber’s informational capitalist system has initiated a discussion on the shifting forms of capitalism, which is being responded by the state.
