President Prabowo Subianto’s push to slash ride-hailing platform commissions has sparked growing concerns over the sustainability of Indonesia’s digital economy, with critics warning that the policy could weaken the very ecosystem it aims to protect.

The government plans to reduce the commission charged by ride-hailing applications from 20 percent to just 8 percent, a move that is closely tied to plans by state asset fund Danantara to acquire a stake in one of the country’s largest digital platforms, PT GoTo Gojek Tokopedia (GoTo). The arrangement would place the state-backed investment body in a direct position to influence pricing and governance decisions within the company. The policy was later formalized through Presidential Regulation (Perpres) No. 27/2026, giving legal backing to what amounts to a major state intervention in Indonesia’s digital economy.

Prabowo’s remarks ahead of the policy announcement made its populist undertones difficult to ignore. During Labor Day celebrations, he openly criticized the commissions charged to ride-hailing drivers as excessive and unfair, arguing that platform fees should be reduced to below 10 percent. The rhetoric framed the issue primarily as a matter of fairness and worker welfare rather than one of platform sustainability or broader market structure.

Following the announcement, House of Representatives Commission VI summoned Danantara to explain its investment plan in GoTo. In principle, Danantara is expected to carry out its mandate based on strategic and commercial considerations, particularly in managing state-linked investments and preserving long-term enterprise value.

The government has justified the policy almost entirely on the basis of improving driver welfare. Yet little attention has been given to the sustainability of such a drastic shift. Cutting platform commissions from 20 percent to 8 percent would erase more than half of the revenue platforms earn from each transaction, even though the operational burden of processing those orders remains largely unchanged. In practice, this revenue would otherwise be reinvested into driver incentives, consumer promotions, logistics expansion, technological maintenance and other operational expenditures needed to sustain platform ecosystems at scale.

The abrupt nature of the policy also leaves little room for gradual adjustment. Faced with such a sharp decline in revenue, platform operators would likely be forced to cut costs elsewhere, whether through reduced promotions, lower incentives, service rationalization or higher prices passed on to consumers. This raises the risk that a policy intended to improve welfare for one segment of the platform economy could instead reduce affordability and weaken transaction activity across the broader ecosystem. Over time, this could ultimately undermine the very objective of improving driver welfare.

These concerns become even more relevant when viewed against Indonesia’s broader consumption trends. Bank Indonesia’s consumer survey recorded a steady decline in consumer confidence throughout 2026, falling from 125.2 at the start of the year to 122.9 in March. Meanwhile, broader structural indicators point to mounting pressure on middle-class resilience. Statistics Indonesia (BPS) found that the country’s middle-class population fell from 57.33 million people in 2019, or 21.45 percent of the population, to 47.85 million people in 2024, representing just 17.13 percent of the population. This is particularly significant given that middle-class households have historically accounted for more than 80 percent of national household spending.

Against this backdrop, critics argue that sharply reducing a major revenue stream for consumer-facing digital platforms could amplify existing weaknesses in domestic consumption rather than strengthen long-term welfare outcomes. At a time when consumer spending remains highly dependent on promotions, incentives and affordability, forcing platforms to absorb a severe revenue shock may ultimately suppress transaction activity and weaken the broader digital economy.

Another key aspect of the controversy concerns how such an unprecedented level of state intervention in the platform economy could become possible. Part of the answer lies in Danantara’s institutional structure operating at arm’s length from the government. Unlike direct ministerial intervention, actions carried out through Danantara can be framed as investment or governance decisions undertaken by a commercially oriented state-linked shareholder rather than overt government directives.

Even so, that distinction becomes increasingly difficult to maintain when the policy direction aligns so closely with explicit political statements made by the President himself. The issuance of Perpres No. 27/2026 further reinforced the intervention by providing formal legal standing for greater state involvement in the governance of strategic digital platforms. In effect, if Danantara proceeds with its plan to acquire GoTo and implement the regulation, what may initially appear to be an aggressive shareholder action could evolve into a policy instrument backed directly by state authority, significantly expanding the government’s practical ability to shape commercial decisions within Indonesia’s platform economy.