Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All • Hacker News Board

Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All

#21

Post by cfadvan » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 8:07 PM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #14

lalos wrote: post #5

It did reshape it. Turns out you can offload your costs to your 'employees' that hardly will organize and project costs and earnings to the future (like a competent business). I've talked with bunch of car sharing drivers who were bamboozled with car loans, get hit by traffic infractions, costs of maintenance and the list goes on and on. I feel that the gig economy preys on people who have not developed that risk man…

Interesting that this thread and the "chatbots aren't so great after all" thread hit the front page on the same day. Anyone who actually thought people gave a shit about chatbots was either deluded, a chatbot API salesman, or a manager/owner trying to cut costs by downsizing their call/chat support center. Anyone who actually thought the gig economy was helping anyone but business owners was either deluded or a shill…

The problem is that “deluded” and “personally invested in” form a venom diagram that looks a lot like a big circle, especially on business and tech sites.

Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All

#22

Post by lalos » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 8:10 PM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #14

lalos wrote: post #5

It did reshape it. Turns out you can offload your costs to your 'employees' that hardly will organize and project costs and earnings to the future (like a competent business). I've talked with bunch of car sharing drivers who were bamboozled with car loans, get hit by traffic infractions, costs of maintenance and the list goes on and on. I feel that the gig economy preys on people who have not developed that risk man…

Interesting that this thread and the "chatbots aren't so great after all" thread hit the front page on the same day. Anyone who actually thought people gave a shit about chatbots was either deluded, a chatbot API salesman, or a manager/owner trying to cut costs by downsizing their call/chat support center. Anyone who actually thought the gig economy was helping anyone but business owners was either deluded or a shill…

We need to take time to think things through, use critical thinking, decide for yourself, see behind the motivations and incentives. Never drink the kool-aid, but you can taste it and decide for yourself. Consider all stakeholders (not only investors and owners) and the impact on society. Us in tech are the ones that are implementing the vision, we are responsible too.

Would not go to extremes and say everybody is a shill, since there has been serious innovation but we should be transparent of what is the cost of all that innovation. Just be honest with oneself (e.g. I'm working with this new fancy decentralized database instead of just buzzwording your way to success by blockchaining everything, etc). We need to drop the ego and work on what we love.

Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All

#23

Post by thaumasiotes » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 8:11 PM UTC

justin wrote: post #17

oli5679 wrote: post #2

Reminds me of the economist Robert Solow's quip: "You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics."

Maybe productivity metrics aren't a perfect measure of society. On many qualitative dimensions we have a much higher quality of living now because of computers: You can talk to anyone almost anywhere in the world for free, instantly. You can recall any information or media instantly. The list goes on..

Continuing the beer theme of my sidethread comment, I read a piece years ago making the point that the then-current explosion of microbreweries looked like a productivity disaster -- microbreweries produce a gallon of beer for a much higher cost than Anheuser-Busch does, so when an economist working with national-level data divides "beer produced in 2011" by "dollars spent producing beer in 2011", it looks like beer productivity has cratered compared to the golden age of the 1950s.

In reality, of course, a can of Budweiser is cheaper than ever (productivity is up) while the populace has become so rich that it's voluntarily spending extra money on what it perceives as higher-quality beer. But there is no conceptual place for this in "beer" productivity statistics.

Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All

#24

Post by adamredwoods » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 8:11 PM UTC

danschumann wrote: post #3

People(most people) like to do the same thing every day. Even me, I'm a programmer and have different tasks, but I get most of my work through one client. I would hate to be chasing down new clients all the time.

When I was freelancing, most of my projects were about 2-3 weeks in length. I had to find new work while trying to complete work. Difficult clients did not help that situation at all, nor intense deadlines. So truthfully, too much time would lapse between gigs, and running the numbers showed me that freelancing was earning around minimum wage, but I was working many more hours.

My best situation was when I had a client that was acting as a project manager and would feed me lots of work when I needed it.

Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All

#25

Post by nkantar » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 8:12 PM UTC

cfadvan wrote: post #21

nerdponx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that this thread and the "chatbots aren't so great after all" thread hit the front page on the same day. Anyone who actually thought people gave a shit about chatbots was either deluded, a chatbot API salesman, or a manager/owner trying to cut costs by downsizing their call/chat support center. Anyone who actually thought the gig economy was helping anyone but business owners was either deluded or a shill…

The problem is that “deluded” and “personally invested in” form a venom diagram that looks a lot like a big circle, especially on business and tech sites.

> "venom diagram"

Fantastic typo! (Or was it intentional?)

Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All

#26

Post by amorphid » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 8:13 PM UTC

anyfoo wrote: post #9

danschumann wrote: post #3

People(most people) like to do the same thing every day. Even me, I'm a programmer and have different tasks, but I get most of my work through one client. I would hate to be chasing down new clients all the time.

Is that true, do most people like doing the same thing every day? It certainly is not true for me. EDIT: A few repliers clarified that it's probably about the stable and reliable income, and not about the nature of the work that's done every day. I can agree with that!

I'd guess everyone is different. A pastry chef might see every tasty creation as a new opportunity to bring joy & happiness into the world. For me, cooking is a chore, and every pastry I have to make after the first is no longer something new.

Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All

#27

Post by dv_dt » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 8:14 PM UTC

lhorie wrote: post #19

That's not really surprising at all. The article says the category of workers in "gig" type of jobs went from 11% in 2005 to 10% in 2017. To change this number above some level of statistical significance, people would have to move away from salaried work to gig jobs en masse or vice-versa, but that's not really how skillsets and careers work. You don't wake up one day and say: "geez, I'm going to stop being a lawyer…

Or people generally don't choose gig work as a first choice, and tightening unemployment has allowed them to get closer to their preferences.

Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All

#28

Post by SimonPStevens » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 8:16 PM UTC

cfadvan wrote: post #21

nerdponx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that this thread and the "chatbots aren't so great after all" thread hit the front page on the same day. Anyone who actually thought people gave a shit about chatbots was either deluded, a chatbot API salesman, or a manager/owner trying to cut costs by downsizing their call/chat support center. Anyone who actually thought the gig economy was helping anyone but business owners was either deluded or a shill…

The problem is that “deluded” and “personally invested in” form a venom diagram that looks a lot like a big circle, especially on business and tech sites.

Don't know if it's just a typo or an actual malapropism, but it's called a Venn diagram.

Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All

#29

Post by unimpressive » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 8:17 PM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #14

lalos wrote: post #5

It did reshape it. Turns out you can offload your costs to your 'employees' that hardly will organize and project costs and earnings to the future (like a competent business). I've talked with bunch of car sharing drivers who were bamboozled with car loans, get hit by traffic infractions, costs of maintenance and the list goes on and on. I feel that the gig economy preys on people who have not developed that risk man…

Interesting that this thread and the "chatbots aren't so great after all" thread hit the front page on the same day. Anyone who actually thought people gave a shit about chatbots was either deluded, a chatbot API salesman, or a manager/owner trying to cut costs by downsizing their call/chat support center. Anyone who actually thought the gig economy was helping anyone but business owners was either deluded or a shill…

This seems like an overly reactionary take. There's a lot of noise in any given hype cycle, distinguishing between unusual preferences people happen to have and manufactured interest isn't always easy.

(See: The curious curious phenomena that humans put most of their personal information on the Internet where other people can see it.)

Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All

#30

Post by sotojuan » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 8:17 PM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #14

lalos wrote: post #5

It did reshape it. Turns out you can offload your costs to your 'employees' that hardly will organize and project costs and earnings to the future (like a competent business). I've talked with bunch of car sharing drivers who were bamboozled with car loans, get hit by traffic infractions, costs of maintenance and the list goes on and on. I feel that the gig economy preys on people who have not developed that risk man…

Interesting that this thread and the "chatbots aren't so great after all" thread hit the front page on the same day. Anyone who actually thought people gave a shit about chatbots was either deluded, a chatbot API salesman, or a manager/owner trying to cut costs by downsizing their call/chat support center. Anyone who actually thought the gig economy was helping anyone but business owners was either deluded or a shill…

Or they did the Fiverr ads for the NYC subways. There’s one that makes fun of people with white collar careers by calling them “chained down” and declaring that working for Fiverr in the gig economy is better.