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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

#71

Post by mkolodny »

ithinkinstereo wrote: post #53
whack wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're doing it because they don't have any other good alternatives. So champion proposals that would grow the economy, create more jobs, increase the median hourly wages, and/or improve the social safety net. I don't see how vilifying Uber or AirBNB is going to help accomplish any of the above. P.S. There is no way for you as an individual to be a supplier on the Seamless, but that still hasn't spared them the au…

> I don't see how vilifying Uber or AirBNB is going to help accomplish any of the above. These companies are part of a greater force eroding the role and rights of labor. I think it's right to vilify the "sharing" company - especially with the type of "this is great for the world" propaganda that they spew out. If we accept these conditions as the norm, they will only continue to slide. We have laws and regulations f…

> You'd be surprised how many are doing this full-time because they can't find employment elsewhere...

Isn't it a good thing that companies like Uber are creating jobs? Particularly for people who can't find employment elsewhere.

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

#72

Post by michaelchisari »

whack wrote: post #44
bsder wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> They're doing it because they don't have any other good alternatives. So champion proposals that would grow the economy, create more jobs, increase the median hourly wages, and/or improve the social safety net. I don't see how vilifying Uber or AirBNB is going to help accomplish any of the above. P.S. There is no way for you as an individual to be a supplier on the Seamless, but that still hasn't spared them the au…

Is it vilification, or is it a little dose of reality to counteract their marketing department?

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

#73

Post by jjn2009 »

bsder wrote: post #40
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.

they have to do that because they live in an expensive area, hence living within your means, this is the part of the comment which you completely ignored. I make good money but I dont work an extra job just so I can live in sf, I just don't live there, its no ones right to live anywhere in particular and if you remove that constraint then "any other good alternatives" doesnt hold true but only for the very few people who literally cannot go somewhere reasonable to live for good reasons other than "it sucks".

Everyone wants to make it sound like these people had a gun to their had and the only option was to be a wage slave to the uber type oppressors, this is completely lacking in perspective to the vast expanse of inexpensive areas there are in which unskilled labor can live comfortably.

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

#74

Post by strken »

bsder wrote: post #40
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.

>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.

How do you know this? The last five uber drivers I've had have been

- a bloke on the way home from the gym

- the owner of a small accountancy firm, also on the way home

- an IT student from China who talked about PHP with me

- a Korean migrant who really hated taxi companies and was saving up for a house

- a CFO for a smallish company who was driving people around because he had to pick up his wife from the airport in a few hours

They all seemed pretty okay with uber. Only one, the student, was driving as a primary source of income, and he was doing about 20 hours a week and making more than he would in any other job.

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

#75

Post by neffy »

branchless wrote: post #15
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…

> 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…

Close, but not quite.

> Banks scale up fiat money creation in response

The US money supply approximately doubles every 10 years, it's remarkably consistent modulo the occasional hiccup.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2

You're right, that that the markets will reprice very quickly, and roughly speaking the more there is (stuff, workers, etc.) the lower the price will be. This would be much less of a problem if money was more evenly distributed, or if there was an efficient tax system in the US. Mostly the problem (if it can be described as singular one) in the US, and elsewhere, is the failure to tax the financial sector properly and redistribute that money back into the public infrastructure.

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

#76

Post by notriddle »

jMyles wrote: post #62
toomuchtodo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't dream, I do. I apply political and financial pressure against my Congressional reps, and have even threatened (with someone else's financial backing) running someone against them (which secured their vote for a socially progressive bill I wanted passed). But you do you. I enjoy applying pressure in the political space, and I play a long game.

I'm not disagreeing about representative pressure. Listen, I've been in almost every congressional office building on the hill and participated in several house campaigns, including a successful one. But I also don't kid myself: this kind of action is not playing the long game. The agenda is set such that congress really doesn't even get to vote on the important matters directly. For example, there will never be a vo…

Government is a fact of how humans think. Tech isn't going to change how our brains work.

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

#77

Post by l33tbro »

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…

While I agree with a lot of what you've said, I think you missed much of the point of the article.

It was written by a comedian, and therefore I read it as meaning to be provocative and not to be taken entirely at face-value (eg, the title of the article). Therefore, I think answering something intentionally provocative with another polemic (eg, "move to bumfuck nowhere" etc) only prevents you from engaging with the actual issues being raised in the original piece.

What I think the piece really is talking about is where things are headed on the cultural and socio-economic compass for the peons (sic), and how that's being framed through this clever, winking, yet ultimately Orwellian language of the culture that validates and encourages what are arguably destructive social forces: being "always on" and "shut-in"-style social isolation.

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

#78

Post by timr »

dvt wrote: post #18

What the article misses is that consumers drive startups like Seamless and Uber up the totem pole. Sure, some have more money than others, but clearly, if Seamless is succeeding then it must've hit a nerve. I mean I don't live in NYC, but whenever I'm there, I honestly hate it. It feels like the biggest concentration of assholery in the entire US. And I'm not saying this like some hippie pot-smoking LA liberal (becau…

"It feels like the biggest concentration of assholery in the entire US."

I guess you haven't been to San Francisco. Take what you hate about New York, and wrap it with a thick layer of smug, futurist, "we're saving the world" self-adulation. At least in the 80s, the leveraged buyout assholes weren't trying to convince people that they were making the world a better place. Gordon Gekko was a satire. Now he's a "growth hacker" at a unicorn.

I have never in my life met so many people who are excited about the idea of creating systemic unemployment as I have since living in bubble SF. Self-driving cars? Man...when Uber can fire all of those profit-sucking drivers, we'll be living the dream, won't we? And anyone who questions the premise of our glorious, pure capitalist future gets:

"If people are riding in Ubers and if people are working for Uber, then, hey, maybe it's not such a terrible "soul-sucking" idea."

OK seriously, dear HN: just because consumers want something doesn't make it good. Consumers want dirt cheap electronics, but don't want to think about the Chinese kid who is getting lead poisoning from his "side hustle" of pulling e-waste apart with his teeth. Consumers want to pay a bit less for their burrito, but not worry about the illegal immigrants who cooked it, and are being evicted from their five-man hovel in the Mission to make room for luxury condos. Capitalism doesn't optimize for "good". It optimizes for profit.

Shitty jobs have always existed. These "gig economy" companies are celebrating this lifestyle, and trying to make it more prevalent and less lucrative for the labor. That's what sucks.

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

#79

Post by jMyles »

notriddle wrote: post #76
jMyles wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not disagreeing about representative pressure. Listen, I've been in almost every congressional office building on the hill and participated in several house campaigns, including a successful one. But I also don't kid myself: this kind of action is not playing the long game. The agenda is set such that congress really doesn't even get to vote on the important matters directly. For example, there will never be a vo…

Government is a fact of how humans think. Tech isn't going to change how our brains work.

No?

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

#80

Post by branchless »

dvt wrote: post #18

What the article misses is that consumers drive startups like Seamless and Uber up the totem pole. Sure, some have more money than others, but clearly, if Seamless is succeeding then it must've hit a nerve. I mean I don't live in NYC, but whenever I'm there, I honestly hate it. It feels like the biggest concentration of assholery in the entire US. And I'm not saying this like some hippie pot-smoking LA liberal (becau…

Uber is getting a lot of its "efficiency" over regular cab companies by side-stepping regulatory burdens.

People are riding uber because it's cheaper or they can deliver a better service at the same price point because they have the comparative advantage of lower regulatory burdens.

You can't infer from this that people are voting with their heart. They are voting with their wallet, which is to say they are existing within the framework of capitalism whilst at the same time Uber exist outside parts of the framework for taxis.

I do agree there are bigger problems, but I don't think that precludes criticising these companies.

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