Online motorcycle taxi (ojek online) drivers began offering informal delivery services, selling homemade food or groceries via WhatsApp and social media---blending Layer 3 (digital platform) with Layer 1 (informal selling).
Street vendors and food stall operators who previously relied solely on cash transactions adopted QRIS (Quick Response Code Indonesian Standard) and digital wallets such as GoPay and OVO, integrating partially into Layer 4 (AI- and data-driven economy) without fully exiting the cash-based Layer 1.
Small retail shops or warungs with no digital presence began listing their products on Tokopedia, Shopee, or social commerce platforms, often using intermediaries or family members to manage digital interfaces while maintaining physical operations.
These shifts were not permanent transformations, but rather adaptive strategies based on necessity, exposure, and the social context of digital use. Many actors reverted to their previous models after pandemic restrictions eased, while others retained hybrid forms.
C. Implications for the 4-Layer Asymmetric Economy Model
The pandemic underscores a key premise of the 4-layer asymmetric economy model: the layers do not represent linear developmental stages, but coexisting modes of production, transaction, and interaction that individuals and enterprises move between dynamically.
Key takeaways include:
Economic policies must not assume rigid strata, but should be designed to support interlayer mobility---both upward and lateral---especially during periods of crisis.
Technology diffusion policies must account for situational access and usage, not just device ownership or digital literacy in abstract.
Adaptive stratification provides a conceptual framework to design resilience-focused economic strategies, where robustness comes not from full digital migration, but from layer-diversification and flexible adaptation mechanisms.
In essence, the COVID-19 pandemic acts as a real-time stress test of Indonesia's economic layering---validating the necessity of a model that acknowledges fluidity, improvisation, and co-existence, rather than static modernization narratives.
6. Field Study: Preliminary Observations in Tangerang
While macroeconomic theories and digital transformation frameworks often generalize industrial sectors as either formalized or disrupted by technology, field observations in semi-urban industrial clusters like Tangerang reveal a more nuanced reality. This region showcases a distinctive pattern of economic organization that neither fully belongs to the traditional informal sector nor has integrated into the digital or AI-based economic layers.
A. Small-Scale Factories as Hybrid Industrial Actors
In several industrial zones in Tangerang, there exists a dense concentration of small-scale manufacturing units, typically employing fewer than 100 workers. These factories produce a wide variety of essential intermediate goods---ranging from packaging materials and household hardware to textile components and food ingredients. They:
Operate legally but often informally in their financial and digital practices.
Maintain manual record-keeping and cash-based transactions.
Lack integration into digital marketplaces or formal banking analytics, thereby escaping the radar of platform-based economic data systems.
These actors blur the conventional distinction between formal and informal and highlight a unique Layer 2.5, which is industrial in structure but analog in practice.
B. Distribution and Marketing: Interpersonal, Not Digital
