We would like to thank CAPES – Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel – for the funding granted in the form of a master’s scholarship, which contributed to the execution of this research.

Introduction

2The iFood application is inserted in the urban economy and expresses this phenomenon concretely. Therefore, we ask: How do digital platforms reshape the urban fabric of cities? Our aim was to understand the expansion of iFood in Brazil, between 2020 and 2022, taking as a reference the geographical situation (SILVEIRA, 1999) of Campos dos Goytacazes. The geographic situation is understood as the profusion of events that characterize a historical construction, requiring the selection of these according to a hierarchy to understand places. As this,

The situation is the result of the impact of a series of events on a place and contains material and organizational existences. Technical innovations and new actions by companies of different strengths, from various segments of the state, groups and corporations spread across a part of the planet, modifying the pre-existing dynamism and creating a new organization of variables (SILVEIRA, 1999, p. 5).

3In this sense, we start from the understanding that the technical-scientific-informational environment expresses globalization. That is, science, techniques and information are at the very basis of the production, use and functioning of geographic space, which is updated through digitalization. The union between technique and science will take place through the market with its main energy being information. Thanks to this junction, the market became global (SANTOS, 2017 [1996], p. 238-239).

4However, digitalization would not be possible without building a system of social values. Therefore, the psychosphere, « kingdom of ideas, beliefs, passions and place for the production of meaning », provides rules for rationality and stimulates the imagination and « consolidates the social basis of technique and behavioral adequacy » (SANTOS, 2017 [1996], p. 256). It supports, accompanies and can precede the expansion of the technical-scientific-informational environment. As part of this same process, we contemplate the technosphere, which comprises the set of technical objects resulting from the increasing artificialization of space. The system of social values associated with the era of digitalization has a strong component of neoliberal rationality (Dardot and Laval, 2016). In other words, it is hegemonically governed by the principles of meritocracy, widespread competition and entrepreneurship.

5Neoliberal rationality has been the governing norm of the digitalization process. According to Dardot and Laval (2019, p.17-19), neoliberalism constitutes a global political rationality imposed on governments, the economy, society and the state itself. The logic of capital becomes a normative subjectivity that hegemonically regulates human existence, and its main principle is the institution of commercial competition for all social spheres. The neoliberal psychosphere is a constitutive part of the expansion process of global digital companies. It enables transformations by creating needs and inducing behaviors. From our perspective, digital platforms are agents of digitalization and neoliberalization. Therefore, they cannot be understood in isolation from value systems. Therefore, the psychosphere is part of the analysis.

6In order to analyze the presence of iFood in Campos dos Goytacazes, in addition to surveying and reading bibliographies on the subject, our methodology, at first, was the collection of secondary data on its website and on those of Prosus, Movile , Amazon Web Services (AWS), WOBA and Naspers, with the aim of understanding the connections and associations between them. Secondly, we carried out a qualitative analysis of the content of the profile of the aforementioned app on Instagram in 2020 and 2021, which was the most acute period of the pandemic. This allowed us to capture how iFood acts in the manufacture of discourses and production of imaginaries in order to act. Then, we systematized and analyzed the data and discussed the results with reference to the literature. In order to identify registered establishments, we used the information available in the iFood application itself. This procedure was carried out by capturing cell phone screens in the commercial area. Then, all the names of the establishments that appear as options for the consumer were typed into Excel and complemented with the addresses acquired through these same queries. Semi-structured interviews were then carried out with the establishments on Avenida Pelinca. Finally, maps were created for analysis and theoretical discussion.

7We present the research in three sections. In the first, we present iFood as an active agent in the process of digitalization in Brazil and the way in which the company has expanded and participated in global circuits for extracting income from places. Next, we demonstrate the platform’s strategies for forming consensus using the psychosphere in the digital environment, in order to attract consumers and restaurants. Finally, we analyze how it operates in Campos dos Goytacazes, revealing how platform companies have become relevant agents in the cities’ dynamic, while renewing socio-spatial and work inequalities.

Digitalization of the territory: the expansion of iFood

8Digitalization is understood as the radicalization of the technical-scientific-hyper informational environment marked by the emergence of the technosphere and digital psychosphere (SILVA, 2021, 2022, 2023). In addition to technical macrosystems, the current geographic environment incorporates applications, websites, social and communication media networks in its operation. In these virtual spaces, the digital psychosphere is disseminated, in order to capture information from individuals and to expand the powers of hegemonic agents through the algorithmization of subjectivities (SILVA, 2021, p. 294-295). Israel (2020, p. 89) shows the creation of virtual verticalities and geodigital traces, revealing the actions of individuals and allowing companies to use this data. In this way, the territory is converted into information.

9The digital era is characterized by having information as its main source of energy. It constitutes the current geographic environment. Because of this, corporations compete with an advantage when they have it. The dispute is imposed on the space itself, and places become more or less attractive due to the informational density.

10Platform companies are territorial platforms that use information as a productive factor in the corporate and algorithmic management of the national territory (TOZI, 2020, p. 491). They promote changes in the regulation and use of territory, establishing a new territorial division of labor; furthermore, they drain money – previously from local circulation – to the corporations’ command centers (TOZI, 2018, p. 4). Although the latter have enormous flexibility to activate and deactivate the places of their action, they depend on the territory and economy of the cities (TOZI, 2019, p. 8-9). The platforms are implemented in places according to this informational density and the urban network.

12In fact, the topology of these corporations is linked above all by the virtualities of places, that is, by the existence of the technical layer that allows their action, such as transport, energy and telecommunications networks and, in particular, the internet. The popularization of smartphones contributed to the population’s adoption of services linked to digital platforms such as food delivery platforms like iFood. The lack of state regulation is also a relevant factor in their success in Brazil. Therefore, iFood is an active agent in the country’s digitalization process, and its expansion was accelerated with the covid-19 pandemic. In 2020, the company operated in approximately 1,620 (29%) Brazilian cities; in 2021, it increased to 5,112 (93%), out of a total of 5570 cities in Brazil. In 2022 and 2023, there was no growth in the number of cities served, maintaining the number of 2021 (Figure 1).

13The company dominates the food delivery platform market in Brazil with the strategy of buying regional operations, as was the case with Plataforma Devorando, from Rio Grande do Sul, one of its acquisitions (Cf. STARTUP..., 2016).

14iFood is a Brazilian platform for intermediation between businesses – mostly restaurants – and consumers. It is a platform offering various delivery services. It receives registrations from couriers and offers the services of iFood Shop (making suppliers available for establishments on the website), iFood

15Company, iFood Digital Meal and iFood Card. In 2022 alone, it received 750 million orders (PROSUS, 2023a). It has more than 330,000 registered establishments, 250,000 couriers, 43 million consumers and 5,000 office workers (IFOOD, 2024). The company has a history of acquisitions, mergers and investment from global capital organizations. Today Movile (controlled by the Dutch company Prosus) owns 100% of iFood’s shares.

17Figure 2 presents a summary of the main events in the expansion of iFood. We highlight the complexity of identifying who currently controls iFood, as, throughout the company’s history, there have been many mergers, acquisitions and much investment. Such contributions reveal changes in the company’s shareholding control, which are not always revealed to the public. Although iFood presents itself as being Brazilian, it is currently controlled by the Dutch group Prosus. This defines itself as a « global technology investor and operator », with global dominance by controlling the companies iFood, Delivery Hero, Swiggy, Flink, Foodics, Oda and Sharebite.

18iFood’s organizational structure reveals the agents involved and how places are mobilized to meet the company’s demands and the interests of global investors. Thus, the corporation’s operations involve offices of Naspers, Prosus and Movile, the offices of iFood, the AWS data center (Amazon’s cloud computing services), businesses and services in urban space, offices registered with WOBA and at the base of this system the couriers. In addition, the company operates on social media networks (digital technosphere).

19In Brazil, iFood has offices located in Osasco (corporate headquarters), Belo Horizonte, Jundiaí, Ribeirão Preto, São Carlos, Uberlândia, Campinas, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Goiânia, Piracicaba, Salvador and Taubaté (Figure 3). The company entered into partnerships with Woba to use coworking spaces, with the aim of serving office employees. It joined the large corporation in the circuit of production of digital information using AWS services, in order to carry out its operations (Cf. ESTUDO…, 2018). iFood offices are mainly located in the Southeast Region. São Paulo has a large part of the fixed offices and is the iFood management center. Movile’s corporate headquarters are located in the city of São Paulo. AWS data centers are in the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, but serve potential customers throughout Latin America.

20The organizational structure of iFood reveals its interaction with other global organizations of the information era and uses the national and global urban network to carry out its operations (Figure 4). The offices mark the existence of platform companies. It is in these spaces that intentional planning occurs and global commands come out, controlling local orders. Through corporate headquarters and a presence on stock exchanges, we observe the strategic actions of iFood’s controlling companies. Through these fixed locations and their actions, we identify the geography of power in the era of digitalization.

21As indicated on the map in Figure 4, iFood’s command and investment center is located in Amsterdam, the location of Prosus’ headquarters and from where command and investment flows to Brazil – where the iFood company operates and the location of Movile headquarters (São Paulo). Prosus is a publicly traded internet and technology corporation on the Euronext stock exchange in Amsterdam and Johannesburg in South Africa, with a shareholder base in the USA (PROSUS, 2023b). It buys shares and invests in companies covering online consumer services involving businesses in the online classifieds, food delivery, payments and fintech and educational technology sectors, totaling 80 institutions. The corporation is present in almost 100 countries on five continents. It is interesting to note that in some segments of activity, Prosus has started to command local groups in countries such as Brazil, India, Romania, Poland and South Africa (Cf. THE..., 2023). Naspers is its majority owner, although the shareholding composition and financial flows between companies are opaque to the general public, being an increasingly striking feature of the financialization process.

22Digitalization is connected to the process of financialization and economic concentration, which takes place on a global scale. Financial funds, digital platform managers, startup investors and technology companies are behind the acceleration of digitalization processes, enhancing oligopolization to levels unidentified in other segments (MORAES, 2020). However, it is important to remember that the technical phenomenon (Ellul, 1968 [1954]) is not new, but has gained other dimensions with the possibilities arising from the internet and the popularization of computers and smartphones in the last two decades (SADIN, 2015 [2013]) and the algorithmization of everyday life, due to the exploitation, on an industrial scale, of a mass of data, a kind of « continuous and expansive nuclear fission », in which all kinds of information can be translated into monetary value (SADIN, 2015 [2013], 2018).

23iFood is a platform company that enables the digitalization of delivery services with relationships based on the hyper-exploitation of labor. It introduced a new way of managing establishments made possible by the use of an application. It promoted a new way of consumption that requires more territorial fluidity. Thus, we can say that this company composes and uses the technical-scientific-informational environment, as it uses the digital technosphere to produce a psychosphere that facilitates the extraction of data relating to consumers, as well as to capture establishments and adapt behaviors to their standards. It is linked to the economic interests of global agents and central countries, complexifying territorial relations beyond their action in Brazil. One of its acquisitions involved a company that became the largest in the field of artificial intelligence in Latin America, Hekima. It works with artificial intelligence, software development and big data combining machine learning techniques and behavioral sciences, and intends to master the understanding of « communication between technical objects and automation of processes » and « understanding of human psychology » for subscribing to iFood services (NOBRE et al., 2023, p. 203).

24Thus, at the same time that iFood expanded its operations, it consolidated itself as an active agent in the process of digitalization in Brazil, with standards based on neoliberal rationality, globalizing itself through investment in global technology companies and investment funds. This was possible due to his direct action in the construction of the psychosphere of acceptance of this novelty.

Digital platforms and the creation of consensus: iFood and neoliberal rationality

25iFood expanded its operations in the country through the production of consensus on a demand produced by the pandemic, but also through insistent advertising and the conviction that deliveries via app would be the solution. Therefore, the psychosphere is an element that integrates the diffusion of digitalization.

26During the period of the covid-19 pandemic, social relationships were intensely established in the digital environment. iFood used social media, the company’s website and app as corporate resources, in order to circulate its discourse to attract couriers, establishments and consumers and to educate all individuals within the digitalization process. Therefore, the marketing and advertising languages produced by the delivery platform are part of Brazil’s digital modernization.

27In the era of digitalization, digital marketing emerges. Now, persuasion and convincing do not only occur through magazines, newspapers, television, radio, but also through the digital psychosphere, which involves the entire apparatus of the social media network. Advertising platforms play an important role, as the more users they have, the greater the power of persuasion in digital media and, consequently, the greater the power of influence in the territory. Thus, the psychosphere is part of social reality that precisely facilitates and legitimizes the exploitation and domination of iFood, making products and foods appear accessible to everyone. However, this sphere ends up facilitating the action of platforms, privileging areas where the dominant classes are located. Furthermore, the psychosphere manages the rhythm of our lives and interferes in the dynamics of places, intended to accelerate the corporation’s surplus value.

29In terms of marketing, iFood’s intention during the pandemic period (20202022) was to expand into the intra-urban space, attracting establishments and, above all, consumers. The delivery platform promised visibility to commercial locations, but all investment in marketing was aimed at promoting the corporation itself, that is, through advertisements it promoted its own platform, and not the registered restaurants. Thus, instead of purchasing directly at the point of sale, customers did so through the app, infiltrating the relationships of the local urban economy. There were several advertisements to attract establishments and consumers. The website’s content aimed at businesses and services was made up of marketing based on promises, such as obtaining new customers, expanding the delivery area and increasing sales. With the urgency of physical distancing, because of the pandemic, platform companies emerged as saviors, fueling the hegemonization of the psychosphere of digital modernization.

31During the pandemic, iFood also used the theme « living » in advertisements. It used phrases like « shopping for groceries is this now »; « living is eating and ordering iFood »; « living is delivering ». Furthermore, the company maintained its focus on physical distancing with the following themes: « the market comes to you », or « contactless delivery », or « with delivery, without contact », making the consumer disregard the risk of contamination caused by the delivery method. With this discourse, we realized that, in addition to encouraging individuals to consume, they intended to educate them on the process of digitizing urban life. We observed the company using the phrase « living is learning » in one of the promotional images, with the caption reproducing the idea of the iFood-customer connection, thus reinforcing consumption through the application.

32In this way, the active role of iFood in the digitalization process is evident through the creation of a transformative consensus on the urban way of life. However, the impact of digitalization involves the production of a covert psychosphere that masks the relations of income extraction and hyper-exploitation of the courier’s labor, seduced by the neoliberal psychosphere; the data collected on a large scale in the digital environment for greater influence over individuals; and above all, the prolonging and deepening of inequalities, materialized in the urban fabric. On the one hand, the hyper-precarious courier is convinced that he is not an employee of the platform and that it is up to him to achieve better earnings by being more « proactive » in deliveries. On the other hand, the application (the iFood platform) is a sophisticated system for capturing data from workers, consumers and establishments, which feeds the database managed by algorithms and artificial intelligence, programmed to expand the process of extracting income from the courier and places. Therefore, hyper-precariousness under the modern phenomenon of digitalization are not contradictory movements but rather part of the circuit of value production, now mediated by service platforms and root platforms. However, the action of digital platforms in places does not occur in an abstract way, nor are actions of modernization and creation of true job opportunities, according to the discourse. Below we analyze the concrete action of iFood in a city marked by socio-spatial inequalities, with the intention of highlighting that behind the algorithms and financial funds, there is the workforce that supports the system and a precarious urban space.

IFood in Campos dos Goytacazes: digitalization and the renewal of inequalities

33Campos dos Goytacazes has a population of 483,551 inhabitants (IBGE, 2022) and can be considered a medium-sized city (SPOSITO, 2010), due to its regional influence and its intermediation function in the urban network between small and metropolitan cities (Rio de Janeiro and Vitória). It is located in the northern region of the state of Rio de Janeiro. It was founded in 1885 and its history is based on sugarcane activity and slavery related to sugarcane production.

34At the end of the 19th century, the physical growth of the city was concentrated in the central area of Campos, while in the area comprising Guarus this growth dynamic was not observed (FARIA; VIEIRA, 2005, p. 13). Urban plans contributed to the structuring of unequal urban space (FARIA, 1998). Central areas had – and still have – priority in public interventions, while other neighborhoods belonging to the less affluent classes were not reached by services and infrastructure. Until the 1950s, the center was the only neighborhood with a concentration of shops and services in the city and, in the following years, restructuring occurred with the emergence of the Pelinca centralities, the Jardim Carioca neighborhood and the Goytacazes subdistrict. This structuring remains today (FÉRES, 2017, p. 26).

35According to Sposito (1991, p. 5-6), centralities arise from the social division of space, characterized as a place of agglomeration of commerce and services that generate flows, in general, linked to different social levels and results in the structuring of cities (in a constant process of (re)structuring). In Campos dos Goytacazes, we identified 1,867 establishments that joined the delivery platform (in October 2022), and there is a logic of concentration corresponding to pre-existing centralities.

36The municipality of Campos is made up of 14 districts. Its urban headquarters are located in the central district also known as Campos dos Goytacazes. It has four sub-districts, although our spatial outline only includes the center, Guarus and Goytacazes sub-districts, which comprise most of the urban area. In the center subdistrict, the highest incomes are concentrated in the neighborhoods Parque Avenida Pelinca, Parque Tamandaré, Parque Conselheiro Tomás Coelho, Jardim Maria de Queiroz, Parque Dom Bosco and Flamboyant, where the classes with the greatest purchasing power reside. In the Guarus subdistrict, there are neighborhoods with lower incomes. Only the Santo Antônio and Jardim Carioca neighborhoods have higher incomes. All of them are served by businesses and services from the center and the subcentralities of Parque Avenida Pelinca, Jardim Carioca and the Goytacazes subdistrict.

37The historic center is the main center of the city and offers a wide range of businesses and services to cater mainly for the working classes. The Jardim Carioca and Goytacazes neighborhoods have shops and services also aimed at classes with lower purchasing power, but the former caters in particular to residents in the Guarus subdistrict, and the latter, residents of the neighborhoods of Goytacazes, Tocos and Donana. The businesses and services in Parque Avenida Pelinca are made up in particular of establishments aimed at high and medium income classes, mainly serving consumers who live in the neighborhoods close to it. It is in this structuring of the urban fabric that iFood acts most strongly (Figure 5).

38According to the data analyzed, the first establishment in Campos dos Goytacazes registered on the platform was in 2017. Registration was not restricted to those located in the main center and sub-centers, but entered commercial points and residences in the neighborhoods. We observed the concentration of memberships in the Pelinca region, but some peripheral neighborhoods of low-income classes, such as Penha, Jockey Club, Turf Club, Nova Brasília, Parque Aurora, had a greater number of registered places of commercial activities and services compared to the rest of the neighborhoods. The only areas that did not register in the central subdistrict are those where the horizontal residential condominiums of the high-end classes are located.

39In the Guarus subdistrict, the concentration of the platform’s businesses and services is located in the Jardim Carioca, Parque Barão do Rio Branco, Parque Vicente Gonçalves Dias, Parque Presidente Vargas and Parque Alvorada neighborhoods, where we find businesses and services along Avenida Senador José Carlos Pereira Pinto. This concentration loses its intensity further away from Jardim Carioca (Figure 6). The peripheral neighborhoods where the low-income classes reside do not have establishments registered in their subdistrict.

40Although the registered establishments are distributed across several neighborhoods in the city’s urban fabric, couriers are gathered in five areas: Center; Parque Avenida Pelinca; Shopping Boulevard, close to McDonald’s; and the Carrefour hypermarket, that is, all close to the central neighborhoods where the highest concentration of income is found.

41The situation of hyper-precarious delivery drivers experienced throughout the country is present in Campos dos Goytacazes. Workers find themselves in terrible working conditions and experience an urban way of life marked by scarcity, spending much of the day and night waiting to be called by the app – this waiting time is not counted as working hours. Furthermore, they are left waiting to receive delivery orders without a physical structure that takes a person’s basic needs into account. Based on these conditions, workers move around the city, mainly for consumers living in central neighborhoods to benefit from their services.

42Couriers’ waiting points indicate the urban space used by them. These points indicate where there are stores registered with the iFood Delivery Plan and which neighborhoods use these services on the app. In this way, they are available to businesses in the historic center and the central areas of the Parque Avenida Pelinca neighborhoods; Parque Tamandaré; and Parque dos Rodoviários, where Boulevard Shopping is located. Under this plan, higher fees are charged to the establishments that use the services provided by couriers. Therefore, the sub centers of Parque Jardim Carioca, Goytacazes and other centralities in peripheral neighborhoods do not adhere to the plan – which offers deliveries made by workers registered on the application as an option. This occurs because these sales locations in peripheral neighborhoods serve a lower income segment. Using the plan would result in this service becoming more expensive for businesses and consumers in these areas.

43Thus, we observe the selective way in which iFood delivery services are consumed, revealing segregation and inequality in the urban space. This fact occurs because this delivery platform causes and allows differentiated access to these centralities in Campos dos Goytacazes. People who buy products or services do not receive the same form of treatment as registered commercial establishments, especially the population residing in the Guarus subdistrict, who do not have access to certain types of delivery services, such as the iFood Delivery Plan, that increases the price of products.

44The high-income classes are served by all those who are registered and have couriers close to their homes. Urban fragmentation is thus revealed, highlighting the urban segregation produced by the technical-scientific-hyperinformational environment through the differentiated access to the city promoted by digital platforms.

45Although the company makes it possible, through the application, to purchase products and food in different neighborhoods – expanding the radius of action of the shops –, the spatial configuration of its operations indicates that the poor in the outskirts do not take advantage of all of the platform’s services. Therefore, each consumer is satisfied by a specific layer of establishments; in other words, according to the centralities and social layers it serves, we can see that segregation and social inequalities and access to the city itself – which already exist – are reinforced by digitalization.

46When analyzing the movement of workers, we can observe that the majority of deliveries made by them are in the center, Parque Tamandaré and Parque Avenida Pelinca neighborhoods. The few retail purchases in Parque Avenida Pelinca made by less affluent consumers – who live in more distant neighborhoods – involve more affordable products.

47The delivery route originating in Parque Avenida Pelinca shows greater movement towards the neighborhoods of the central subdistrict, while, towards the Guarus subdistrict, only towards the Jardim Carioca and Parque Guarus neighborhoods. The Goytacazes subdistrict does not have a flow of delivery people for products purchased at Parque Avenida Pelinca establishments through the app. Thus, the sequence of information and delivery people not associated with iFood is concentrated only among businesses and services in this area and the neighborhoods they serve. We can say that, in the digital era, delivery platforms operate according to pre-existing centralities. In other words, access to the city’s businesses and services is differentiated by the platform’s action, reaffirming the fragmentation, segregation and inequalities of urban space.

48In this way, the company enables new flows of information throughout the urban fabric, due to the unprecedented form of consumption and management of establishments provided by the algorithmic management of urban space. This is the corporate and algorithmic management of the territory implemented in cities as addressed by Tozi (2021). However, we emphasize that the algorithm is not neutral, the flows corresponding to the interests of the highest income and most powerful classes in cities. The intermediation of circulation in the city is based on the collection of information from the platform itself, such as a sensor that identifies places with potential income (consumer profile) and the availability of establishments, according to the identified demand. Based on this information, the algorithm connects couriers and guides to the fastest and most profitable routes.

Final considerations

49iFood is a corporation that actively participates in the digitalization process in Brazil and reveals how value production circuits currently tend to be global and mediated by platforms managed by financial funds. This implies the voracious extraction of income from cities.

50The covid-19 pandemic was the accelerating event for digitalization. Therefore, we ask: How do digital platforms renew the urban fabric of cities? Our objective was to understand the expansion of this platform in Brazil in the period from 2020 to 2022, taking as a reference the geographical situation of Campos dos Goytacazes. Based on the research carried out, we can make some conclusions. iFood – by introducing a new way of consumption and management of establishments through the use of its application, especially during the pandemic – is an active agent in the digitalization process in Brazil, promoting the digital intermediation of delivery services and the urban economy. This action took place and continues to take place through the use of digital marketing as an instrument for creating consensus. In other words, it acted and still acts in the formation of a psychosphere in tune with neoliberal rationality, aimed at workers as well as city dwellers, in order to absorb the new way of accessing food business in cities. It is this system of values that supports the process of capital accumulation. It authorizes platformization without limits and without regulations to protect workers. A worker who understands himself as an entrepreneur and a more than perfect consumer, united by an application that provides food, produced by other workers, where each of these agents transferres income to global investors, that are increasingly difficult to identify, is due in part to the promoting of a perverse logic that highlights the benefits of digitalization and hides exploitative relationships. In this sense, the psychosphere is relevant to illuminate this process.

51This delivery platform is linked to the economic interests of global agents, allowing the intensification of capital transfer to the company’s strategic centers: the United States, the Netherlands and South Africa. In this way, the management nodes constitute action networks of actors hegemonic entities that adapt local behaviors of digitalization. In view of this, the State becomes extremely important in the digital era by regulating the actions of platforms at all scales. Information and financial flows are averse to regulations that prevent them from entering places, but at the same time they demand regulations favorable to these flows. Labor deregulations, regulations on the actions of workers and the erosion of municipal laws are some aspects of the need for the state to be in tune with large digital platforms.

52Furthermore, we noted the importance of some cities on a global scale in the management of iFood (its controllers Prosus and Naspers), as well as the southeast region of Brazil where the companies’ corporate offices are located, especially in São Paulo. Therefore, despite digitalization, its performance depends on the urban hierarchy for action and management. In this way, centralities are maintained even in the face of the imposition of global orders.

53Information flows are intensified in urban space in the digital era, but they make use of the pre-existing urban fabric without changing the territorial structure. We identified that iFood operates in the city of Campos dos Goytacazes in accordance with historically materialized centralities. These, in turn, reveal urban social stratification and inequalities in access to goods and services in the city. We found that Guarus is underprivileged in relation to the service offered by the platform. Therefore, digitalization renews inequalities, even with a convincing discourse about its benefits.

54Therefore, we did not observe structural changes in the urban fabric in Campos dos Goytacazes regarding its functions. There was the insertion and intensification of information flows through iFood. However, historically materialized centralities were renewed, as well as spatial inequalities. In this article we present some aspects of the phenomenon of the expansion of digital platforms. However, we recognize the need for further theoretical and empirical studies.