Digital platforms (DPs) provide individuals with alternative opportunities for earning incomes, attracting skyrocketing individuals to work as DP complementors. This gives rise to the superior power of DP owners by which complementors can be treated unfairly while they are vulnerable to seeking redress as they are legally autonomous from the underlying DPs. Unfair DP treatment can threaten complementors’ survival and be detrimental to the DP’s long-term development. Yet, there is a lack of a holistic understanding of the fairness perceived by DP complementors and their fairness needs can be addressed by DP owners. To address these gaps, we conducted a case study of complementors on content platforms (i.e., content creators) by accounting for their perceptions of DP fairness. Our study contributes to the DP fairness literature by 1) generating a holistic understanding of the DP fairness perceived by complementors, and 2) developing fairness-addressing actions that can be adopted by DPs
