Earlier quoted context omitted.
> really hard to do because of catch 22 To expand on what mrtksn means: in the UK, it is difficult to get a bank account without proof of address. It is also difficult to rent a flat without a UK bank account. There are a few ways around this: - Have a friend put you on their water bill and use this as proof of address. I suspect this is illegal. - Join a flatshare without getting on the lease, pay for your portion o…
As of 2016, Lloyds bank offered a "Welcome to the UK" current account that you could open without proof of address.
Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All
121–130 of 249 posts
Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All
#122It's easy to get cynical about the gig economy. But I try and remember that the original spirit of it has been largely successful. The promise of the app economy was that you could take an idea like "I wish I could drive people around for extra money" and make it real, and now it's only real, but for people like my driving-averse mom it's revolutionary. But distortions to the dream have come from all sides. Customers…
Uber started as a way to fill the downtime that professional drivers had between clients and jobs. They said, "Hey, there is a workforce with 50% of it s hours idle. I bet we can turn the into cash." It was a brilliant idea. Airbnb started with a similar proposition. It was a derivative of couch surfing—find some excess supply and monetize it. People are doing this for free, I bet we can do it better and make a few bucks. And then in morphed into the abomination we have today.
It wasn't until Lyft and the competitive market saw what was happening and people thought, "What if we just ignore safety regulations and licensing by declaring that we are in a new industry? There's money to be made there." That's what the gig economy ended up being. It wasn't intentional. It was a way to avoid COSTS by ignoring safety, training, benefits, licensing, insurance, zoning and minimum wage laws. And that's where 90% of the value comes from. If these companies had to play by the same rules as everyone else they wouldn't exist because there wouldn't be enough money to be made.
Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All
#123When I first arrived in London my English was not good enough to speak on the phone, I had no idea what the London job market for developers looked like, I had no idea where should I live and where should I settle. So for the first 3-4 months, I did some wine waiting as a gig(agency work, no fixed place or hours. Like with Uber, you provide your own gear - like uniforms, bottle openers etc.) at the finest, the most i…
> really hard to do because of catch 22 To expand on what mrtksn means: in the UK, it is difficult to get a bank account without proof of address. It is also difficult to rent a flat without a UK bank account. There are a few ways around this: - Have a friend put you on their water bill and use this as proof of address. I suspect this is illegal. - Join a flatshare without getting on the lease, pay for your portion o…
Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All
#124When I first arrived in London my English was not good enough to speak on the phone, I had no idea what the London job market for developers looked like, I had no idea where should I live and where should I settle. So for the first 3-4 months, I did some wine waiting as a gig(agency work, no fixed place or hours. Like with Uber, you provide your own gear - like uniforms, bottle openers etc.) at the finest, the most i…
> really hard to do because of catch 22 To expand on what mrtksn means: in the UK, it is difficult to get a bank account without proof of address. It is also difficult to rent a flat without a UK bank account. There are a few ways around this: - Have a friend put you on their water bill and use this as proof of address. I suspect this is illegal. - Join a flatshare without getting on the lease, pay for your portion o…
Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
bring back unions
Are individuals incapable of making decisions on their own? Why shouldn’t the individual have the choice to drive or not drive as well as making decisions about their economic situation? Nobody is forced to drive. Nobody is forced to work for less than they value their labor. Unionizing Uber means dramatically high prices, which means less demand. There isn’t a magic pot of money just waiting to be distributed. If co…
> "...he thinks he deserves $20."
Who said anything about deserving? You said as much that you'd drive yourself when it came to a $20 ride; you wouldn't drive yourself if it was $10. This more or less suggests the only reason Uber provides value to you is because it charges less than what you'd charge if you were providing it, because you think you deserve $20. In that instance it's not unfair to say that you get value out of Uber undercutting the competition.
> "Those that think they should earn more can quit..."
I suppose they just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps too? Not many of us can enjoy the privilege of quitting our jobs because we know we're worth more than we're getting. I have that privilege and I use it often, like many of us do in tech. For as long as we value low prices at all costs, there will always be someone who is forced into taking on this kind of job because they don't have the luxury of choice that we do. They can't quit because it's either the $10 you want to give them, so you can save $10 for yourself, or nothing.
It's been clear enough for a long time that those who enjoy the services from others won't really advocate for them, and neither will their employers, so unions and regulations are there to sort that out.
Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All
#126Last time wealth inequality peaked, the robber barons had strike breakers and whatnot. This time (with wealth inequality continuing to soar to historically unprecedented heights) they have the 'gig economy'.
Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All
#127It's easy to get cynical about the gig economy. But I try and remember that the original spirit of it has been largely successful. The promise of the app economy was that you could take an idea like "I wish I could drive people around for extra money" and make it real, and now it's only real, but for people like my driving-averse mom it's revolutionary. But distortions to the dream have come from all sides. Customers…
Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All
#128For most people (not highly sought after programmers), its an erosion of what paltry remnant of their workers rights remains. Last time wealth inequality peaked, the robber barons had strike breakers and whatnot. This time (with wealth inequality continuing to soar to historically unprecedented heights) they have the 'gig economy'.
/s
Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
> really hard to do because of catch 22 To expand on what mrtksn means: in the UK, it is difficult to get a bank account without proof of address. It is also difficult to rent a flat without a UK bank account. There are a few ways around this: - Have a friend put you on their water bill and use this as proof of address. I suspect this is illegal. - Join a flatshare without getting on the lease, pay for your portion o…
Can anyone comment on why this is the case? It seems ridiculous on it's face.
This also applies to anti-money-laundering stuff: it's better to affect loads of people really badly who are most certainly not money laundering as long as it does not affect the people who are money laundering at scale.
That said, there are people who don't really understand that people on social media paying you for access to your bank account are probably money laundering.
This is in a country where it is perfectly permitted to open several stores of the same chain of gambling establishments in the same street with fixed-odds betting machines and no questions of where the large sums of cash being handed over come from.
Re: Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All
#130It 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…