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“Side Hustle” as a Sign of the Apocalypse

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Re: “Side Hustle” as a Sign of the Apocalypse

#31

Post by whack »

beevai142 wrote: post #23
whack wrote: post #11

Call me a crank, but personally, I'm getting annoyed by people who love to blame tech companies for everything. "This unending hamster wheel of capitalism and technology is driving us all to the brink of insanity" Maybe that's true, but instead of blaming tech companies and brogrammers, maybe try taking a look in the mirror. You want to escape the rat race? Pack up your bags, move to bumfuck nowhere, and spend all yo…

If someone wants to fight the "unending hamster wheel of capitalism and technology", then certainly shutting up is a bad strategy. The reasons for making noise about this given in the article are not personal, but ideological. Presumably, it works as intended if it feels annoying.

But the enemies he's railing against have nothing to do with the cause he's trying to champion. The central message of the blog post is to let go of consumerism, which I can certainly get behind. But consumerism has nothing to do with the latest generation of tech companies. Costly hotels existed long before AirBNB came along. Taxis existed long before Uber came along. Restaurants and maids existed long before Handy or Seamless.

If you want to be anti-consumerist, if you want to minimize your living expenses, go right ahead. But vilifying Seamless, and the people who would rather use Seamless and spend the extra hour reading instead of cooking, is just masturbatory righteous-indignation.

Re: “Side Hustle” as a Sign of the Apocalypse

#32

Post by kem »

jMyles wrote: post #27

I... don't really think this is a good read, for a few reasons. Let's look at (what I think is) the thesis: > Unfettered capitalism doesn’t give you time back or freedom or relaxation. It drills every orifice you have until a few more pennies drop out so the Q4 numbers look good for shareholders. The article then moves on to (albeit articulately) name "gig economy" companies as the vehicle for this exploitation. But…

I probably agree with the essay's argument that the gig economy (or maybe, more specifically, a particular set of dystopian ads for it) is a sign of the apocalypse. It's just that, as you say, I don't think the gig economy is causing it.

Re: “Side Hustle” as a Sign of the Apocalypse

#34

Post by branchless »

rampage101 wrote: post #22
branchless wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if you don't want to do any of the above, that's fine too Most people have no choice on this. They have to work and it's just to subsist. Typical of hacker news that this would be the most up-voted comment. Regarding tech, the main change tech has brought is to allow very accurate tracking of debt. Most debt is created through land. Surplus value goes to the landlords and banks. Before this was not completely e…

Not everybody is struggling out there... tech has some of the highest salaries for any industry. It is workers that are not in tech like traditional taxi drivers which are losing out badly to these innovations.

yes, which is a hell of a lot more than people who work in tech, hence my point that these people don't choose this, it's thrust upon them by our flawed system which sees surplus value flow to the banks who create credit out of nothing to capture said surplus value.

Re: “Side Hustle” as a Sign of the Apocalypse

#35

Post by [deleted] »

jMyles wrote: post #20
toomuchtodo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd like to see a Gig Economy Union myself. This is called "labor law". I'm personally looking forward to the IRS reaping its pound of flesh from Uber for contractor misclassification and the hundreds of millions of dollars in employer payroll back taxes and penalties that will be due.

Is it irony that, if this comes to pass, the government will use that money, made on the backs of mostly poor people in the USA, to drop bombs on mostly poor people on the other side of the world?

[deleted]

Re: “Side Hustle” as a Sign of the Apocalypse

#36

Post by cstejerean »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #14
pnathan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see a Gig Economy Union myself. Sure I can hire an Uber, get my laundry handled, my shopping done, but I want to know the poor s.o.b. doing the work has benefits and a decent wage, and isn't being screwed over by the app-company-of-the-month.

> I'd like to see a Gig Economy Union myself. This is called "labor law". I'm personally looking forward to the IRS reaping its pound of flesh from Uber for contractor misclassification and the hundreds of millions of dollars in employer payroll back taxes and penalties that will be due.

Why should Uber driver be considered employees but not taxi drivers driving for Yellow Cab? Pretty much all taxi drivers are independent contractors, and I don't see how they are different from Uber drivers.

Re: “Side Hustle” as a Sign of the Apocalypse

#39

Post by arjie »

Whatever, man. Personal autarky is as inefficient an endeavour as the type practised by nations. Each man is as subject to the law of comparative advantage as a nation is.

This disparagement of 'mom-tech' is the nth iteration of the same anti-trade nonsense that people have tried to peddle since before we had economists we called economists.

My time is worth more to me than the other guy's time is to him. Stopping me from paying him is going to make both of us worse off.

Re: “Side Hustle” as a Sign of the Apocalypse

#40

Post by bsder »

whack wrote: post #11

Call me a crank, but personally, I'm getting annoyed by people who love to blame tech companies for everything. "This unending hamster wheel of capitalism and technology is driving us all to the brink of insanity" Maybe that's true, but instead of blaming tech companies and brogrammers, maybe try taking a look in the mirror. You want to escape the rat race? Pack up your bags, move to bumfuck nowhere, and spend all yo…

> I like

The point isn't preventing YOU, the consumer, from doing this.

The point is that most people as the supplier aren't doing Uber, AirBnB, etc because they like it. They're doing it because they don't have any other good alternatives.

Most of the people on the supply side of the serfdom economy are gaining very little benefit. This is a real problem.

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