Zomato founder and chief executive Deepinder Goyal’s post on X on Friday triggered a debate on India’s gig economy, drawing both praise for its candour and criticism for deflecting attention from worker pay, protections and accountability.
The comments come at a time when delivery workers across major platforms are staging protests over earnings and working conditions.
In his post, Goyal argued that the gig economy has forced an unprecedented, direct interaction between the consuming class and the working class.
He said that for centuries, the labour of the poor remained invisible to the rich, hidden in factories, fields and backrooms.
According to him, app-based delivery has shattered that invisibility by placing delivery workers at the customer’s doorstep, making inequality personal and emotionally uncomfortable.
Goyal wrote that debates around the gig economy were driven not just by policy concerns but by guilt felt by consumers when confronted with workers who deliver expensive orders while earning modest sums.
He suggested that some calls to ban or heavily regulate gig work were less about dignity and more about restoring invisibility.
He warned that banning or over-regulating gig work would not eliminate inequality but would instead erase livelihoods, push workers back into informal cash economies with fewer protections, and allow the consuming class to return to moral comfort without confronting disparities.
Visibility, he argued, was the price of progress, and the real question was how society responded after opening the door.
The post divided opinion on X. One user commented that while he had respect for Goyal, he disagreed with his framing.
The user argued that gig workers were never invisible to the system that priced their labour, cut incentives, tweaked algorithms and shifted risks such as fuel costs, accidents and health onto them.
What changed, the user wrote, was not visibility but bargaining power. The post accused Goyal of shifting the conversation away from accountability and value capture, noting that platform founders have become millionaires and billionaires even as workers have had to strike for minimum livelihoods.
According to the user, the issue was a distribution problem reflected on balance sheets, not consumer guilt at the doorbell.
“The problem is platforms building a model where all the risk sits with the worker and then calling it ‘progress.’ Turning exploitation into a philosophical essay doesn’t change the reality of low pay, long hours, and zero security.” wrote another.
“I am doing a public service to the society by exposing poor to the rich - Billionaire CEO”, one user said.
“You call them “Partners” but don't reveal how much they are getting out of that partnership. If you could reveal the numbers on average cost per order and the breakdown on what % of that goes to your partners vs the company along with average wage per hour. We could end the debate.” wrote another.
Many users also called it as one of the most honest framings of the gig economy debate to come from an industry leader, praising Goyal for articulating the moral discomfort many consumers feel.
One user said the post helped resolve their ethical dilemma about using delivery apps and called it rare for Indian founders to share such raw views on sensitive issues.
Another highlighted Goyal’s line, “The doorbell is not the problem. The question is what we do after opening the door,” calling it memorable, while also questioning whether visibility over the years has translated into healthcare, insurance, fair algorithms and real upward mobility for workers.
The controversy unfolded against the backdrop of ongoing protests by platform workers.
Delivery partners for Blinkit and Zomato, along with those associated with Swiggy, Zepto and Amazon, have recently taken part in nationwide strikes, including actions on 25 and 31 December.
Organised by unions such as the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers, the protests focus on lower effective payouts per order, frequent changes to incentive slabs despite rising fuel and maintenance costs, and the broader absence of income predictability.
Workers have also raised concerns about arbitrary deactivation or blocking of work IDs without clear explanations or a fair grievance redressal mechanism.
Union leaders say such actions leave workers without income and with little recourse.
An earlier post by Goyal on Friday addressed protests. He said he supports peaceful protests but opposed violent demonstrations or attempts to stop others from working.
Goyal claimed that in some cases, individuals participating in protests were not delivery partners but agents of political interests seeking to gain mileage from the narrative.