OJOL Drivers Are Protesting Gojek and Grab. It's a Crisis Years in the Making.
Gojek and Grab drivers are protesting the very apps that once empowered them. What happened to the ride-hailing dream in Indonesia’s gig economy?
Indonesia’s beloved ride-hailing platforms were once symbols of digital progress, economic inclusion, and “let’s just order it on the app lah.” Now, they are now facing mass protests… from their own drivers.
The same drivers who once upon a time were paraded as the face of empowerment, innovation, and Southeast Asia’s tech-led leap into the future are now asking for something as unfashionable as basic labor rights. They want fair pay, transparency, and to not be quietly throttled by an algorithm optimized to please investors, not humans. It’s the kind of ask that apparently requires a protest in this economy.
These apps were supposed to flatten inequality, bring dignity to informal work, and boost GDP. Just ask any 2017 keynote speaker. But now the drivers are burnt out, broke, and being gamified into exhaustion by features with names like “Hemat” that ironically leave them with less than that.
It’s not that no one predicted this. It’s that those who did weren’t invited to the funding round. The platforms were built on VC-funded idealism, generous subsidies, and a wildly flawed —-assumption: that you could scale poverty and still call it innovation.
Silicon Valley Comes to Indonesia, Immediately Forgets to Do the Math
Let’s rewind to the glory years of 2015 / 2016, when Indonesia was being hailed as Southeast Asia’s next digital frontier. The economy was humming, smartphones were spreading fast, and the venture capital crowd was foaming at the mouth. Jakarta became the new petri dish for tech’s savior complex. Every VC worth their Patagonia vest wanted in.
Their solution to “digitize” the informal economy? Subsidize motorbike rides until they were basically free. For a brief, glorious window in time, you could cross half the city for the price of a menthol cigarette. Menteng to Blok M for Rp 6,000? Of course, bro. Gojek’s got you.
Billions were raised. Smart people were flown in. Some were local Ivy League returnees. Others came via LinkedIn invites from Singapore. Together, they brought slides, metrics, and business models forged in the fire of markets with far less chaos. The mission: disrupt ojek pangkalan.
And they succeeded. Just not economically.
Because while they captured market share and trained millions to expect free convenience, they also forgot how math works. Revenue didn’t matter if the growth graph looked exciting. Margins could wait until Series F. Profit? Sure, just maybe after the IPO.
Meanwhile, the drivers, the ones doing the actual work, were tossed the label “partners” like it was a perk, not a way to dodge labor law. The apps grew. So did downloads. But not sustainability.
Now the fairy dust is gone. The subsidies are dead. Investors want returns. And that lifestyle they made everyone addicted to? Turns out someone has to pay for it.
Protests Are a Tradition It’s Just the Uniform That Changes
Let’s take a trip back to 2016, when Jakarta’s streets were filled with the righteous fury of Bluebird taxi drivers. They weren’t demanding subsidies or fuel vouchers, they were demanding survival. Gojek and Grab had crashed onto the scene, undercutting fares, outpacing response times, armed with nothing but promo codes, and an army of app-based riders. It wasn’t a fair fight. Bluebird drivers blockaded Sudirman, honked in defiance, and warned everyone this would end badly.
They were, of course, dismissed as relics. Luddites in polyester batik. The world was moving forward, and they were in the way.
Now fast-forward nine years, and the punchline writes itself: Gojek and Grab drivers are now protesting Gojek and Grab.
It’s poetic. The revolution has eaten its children. The disruptors have grown into the very thing they were supposed to replace.
But this isn't a tantrum. It's a coming-of-age story. These are graduates of the platform economy, now experienced in the art of exploitation. The same app that once offered them opportunity now doles out punishment via algorithm. And they’ve learned through cancelled rides, shrinking fares, and tiered “priority” systems that the power promised to them was always conditional.
What’s changed is their toolkit. The pangkalan guys had horns and handwritten signs. Today’s drivers have screenshots, spreadsheet breakdowns, and viral videos of support groups railing against aceng and slot systems.
From nostalgic resistance to networked revolt, the uniform may be different but the battle is the same: real workers trying to claw back power from a system that treats them as inputs in someone else’s growth graph.
“Sorry, We Can't Pay You More We’re Still Paying Back the Billion-Dollar Discount Era”
Drivers are asking for what, in any sane system, would be table stakes: transparent fares, fairer cuts, and a say in how the sausage gets made. These are not revolutionary demands. They are, frankly, the bare minimum if we’re going to keep pretending they’re “partners” and not just warm bodies plugged into a logistics machine.
But here’s the awkward truth: the platforms don’t have the money. Or rather, they had the money. They just spent it on years of gloriously unsustainable growth, massive discounts, brand partnerships, and in-app cashback campaigns.
Now that the VC firehose has slowed to a trickle, it’s cleanup time. But nobody wants to pick up the bill. Not the investors, they’ve moved on to AI and semiconductors. Not the executives, they're too busy keynote speaking about “operational resilience” while quietly deleting those old 2018 pitch decks promising profitability by Q4.
So who pays? Easy: drivers first, through stagnating or shrinking payouts. Consumers next, through fewer promos, longer wait times, and fares that start looking suspiciously like Bluebird circa 2014.
And platform valuation? That’s untouchable. Because in techland, it's more important to look successful than to be fair.
The irony is that after years of convincing consumers that delivery should be practically free, any attempt to reintroduce reality is met with howls of betrayal. People react like they’ve been taxed, not asked to pay what the service costs.
But that’s the tragedy of the model. The platforms spent a decade selling the dream, and now the hangover’s here.
Public Support: The Last Domino Before the Whole Game Collapses
Every social movement needs a bit of wind in its sails and in this case, that wind is public sympathy. Without it, OJOL drivers are just angry people in green and black jackets shouting at office buildings. With it, they’re a movement. A force. A trending hashtag, at the very least.
In the early days, they had it. The public adored them. They were the everyday heroes, dodging potholes and pouring rain to bring you bubble tea.. They represented hustle, grit, and the promise of the new mobile-first, motorcycle-powered Indonesia..
But now? The public is tired. Tired of price hikes. Tired of inflation. Tired of not finding a driver when they need one. And with the economy tightening, sympathy is suddenly very conditional.
Because as soon as the protests start to affect service: delayed pickups, cancelled rides, fare hikes, or, heaven forbid, the disappearance of promo codes, public goodwill dries up fast. People love justice, in theory. Just not when it means paying more for their ayam geprek.
This is the central tension of the whole mess: the drivers can’t win without public support, but public support is allergic to inconvenience.
Consumers, themselves under economic stress, are unlikely to champion a cause that makes life more expensive. They want to support the drivers, but not if it means paying Rp 5,000 more for a ride. And certainly not if it messes with their lunchtime delivery window.
So the protests walk a fine line. Too soft, they’re ignored. Too disruptive, they lose hearts. It’s a catch-22. Indonesia’s gig economy runs on frictionless convenience. And inconvenience, no matter how righteous, doesn’t go viral.
So where does this all land? Right back where we started, except now everyone’s a little more broke and a lot more cynical.
What was once branded as disruption now feels like déjà vu. The platforms that promised to “empower” the informal sector ended up doing what traditional industries did, only faster, and sleeker. Instead of cutting out the middlemen, they became the new ones, only now the middleman is an app that takes 25% and thanks you with a badge for loyalty.
Drivers who were once sold the dream of flexibility and freedom are now locked into algorithmic piecework, chasing bonuses that move like mirages. Consumers, meanwhile, are starting to feel the pinch as the fantasy of forever-discounted convenience collides with economic reality.
And the platforms? They’re consolidating, rebranding, and pivoting to "efficiency" (translation: squeezing harder).
If even the disruptors are being disrupted, maybe the whole model needs a rethink. Maybe we stop calling it “innovation” when it just repackages old problems. If progress is cycling through generations of workers who all end up protesting the same broken logic, congrats we’ve built a revolution on loop.
And no, it wasn’t made for us. It was made for ROI.
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