Immaterial labour – activities of a cognitive nature enhanced by the new digital technologies that have given rise to so-called ‘platform capitalism’ – has implied a huge transformation in the world of work and the expansion of precariousness, to the point that the traditional idea of employment is beginning to be seen as a thing of the past. These are the issues discussed in this article by José Nuno Matos, an expert in the sociology of work and a researcher at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais in Lisbon.