do duty as

The 1918 influenza pandemic, which has been distilled in the public imagination to a single black-and-white image of bedridden US soldiers, has been hauled out of mothballs to do duty as a template of what we might expect from Covid-19.

Having reached Safeway with no fatalities, Stassin and I ordered our respective Loomos to trail us, so that they could do duty as shopping carts.

Second World War 'victory gardens' in Britain, for instance, saw everything from swathes of London's Hyde Park to railway embankments do duty as cropland.

A hugel can also do duty as a raised bed, with different sides having different sweet spots.

Do I want something that can do duty as a laptop?