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How the gig economy is making life harder for North American workers

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Re: How the gig economy is making life harder for North American workers

#61

Post by chillwaves »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #44
roenxi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gentleman in the video has a couple of good points (and it is likely that Uber will eventually get regulated). That being said, the premise here seems to be confused on a number of issues. + "Unsafe everything, assaults [and] kidnappings" are in fact already illegal. More regulation will not make them more illegal. Claiming we need a taxicab commission to enforce basic laws is a non-sequitur of breathtaking scope…

+ "Unsafe everything, assaults [and] kidnappings" are in fact already illegal. More regulation will not make them more illegal. Claiming we need a taxicab commission to enforce basic laws is a non-sequitur of breathtaking scope. Indeed they are already illegal, however adequate checks are not done on those who want to be people driver. That effect of not actually doing due diligence does allow much higher incidence o…

You make a lot of good points but I question this,

> And foregoing profit to starve the market is also a perfectly valid strategy. In other words, the lack of profit is intentional and easily reversed at will.

If they start raising rates what stops their customer base from migrating? I see how companies capture their community and there is friction to move, such as Facebook or even Twitter or Reddit.

I don't see the same loyalty to Uber. My speculation is the real decider will be self driving vehicles and I have no inside knowledge of how far these companies are but I also think there is an issue of superficial good enough vs true self sufficient (and safe) driving vehicles.

I would bet on Waymo over Uber, I just don't see how the business model of subsidized fares is sustainable or easily reversible without creating space in the market for competitors (and self driving is on the horizon).

Re: How the gig economy is making life harder for North American workers

#62

Post by plink »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #44
roenxi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gentleman in the video has a couple of good points (and it is likely that Uber will eventually get regulated). That being said, the premise here seems to be confused on a number of issues. + "Unsafe everything, assaults [and] kidnappings" are in fact already illegal. More regulation will not make them more illegal. Claiming we need a taxicab commission to enforce basic laws is a non-sequitur of breathtaking scope…

+ "Unsafe everything, assaults [and] kidnappings" are in fact already illegal. More regulation will not make them more illegal. Claiming we need a taxicab commission to enforce basic laws is a non-sequitur of breathtaking scope. Indeed they are already illegal, however adequate checks are not done on those who want to be people driver. That effect of not actually doing due diligence does allow much higher incidence o…

>Bullshit. They have one of the hottest stock request IPOs out there. A year ago their estimated market cap was $50B. Now its estimated at $70B. Sure doesn't sound like a no-profit company.

So, Uber has outperformed Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC's one-time market cap of $64B.

Re: How the gig economy is making life harder for North American workers

#63

Post by crankylinuxuser »

aphextron wrote: post #54
adrianratnapala wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I'm not so sure it's that simple. At this point I was expecting an explanation of how an similar number of low-skilled people would have jobs if these services didn't exist. Instead you give the unexplained assertion > You have this zero sum game ... Which game is it? Who are the players? What is zero-sum about it?

>Which game is it? Who are the players? What is zero-sum about it? It's the same game they're playing with AirBnB, Uber, etc. Just openly break the law and subvert centuries of built up labor laws and protections we've created to make America into a livable society, just to profit a small minority of shareholders. The players are the American people, with no choice left but live with this system because more equitabl…

Look at my last post (-4). Youre not allowed to criticize the almighty dollar, vulture...err venture capitalists, employment arbitrage firms, quasi-legal companies, or other horrendously unethical behavior. Why? Because there's a company doing it, and others making money on humans' suffering.

But hey, I got that hamburger faster and $1 off the delivery.

Re: How the gig economy is making life harder for North American workers

#64

Post by anovikov »

I never had a full time job, and i think of it as of a very, very odd thing. I know there are areas where it is necessary (say upper levels of management, public servants, and doctors in areas of healthcare where it's all about collective efforts, not private practice).

But for the most people, being full time is nothing but a form of psychological exploitation. People were generationally taught to value the (false) sense of stability it provides in return for being paid much less, and many social institutions such as mortgages, were built on top of that to reinforce, and take advantage of, that odd thing.

If it dies for about 80% of population i'll see it as a benefit, and i feel totally comfortable with it. I fully realise that i am totally unemployable as i am: hiring me full time and paying me what i make will be simply unprofitable for almost every potential boss. And many better qualified people than me 'happily' work for the fraction of what i make because they are addicted to these guaranteed twice a month paychecks, unable to imagine their life without these 'guarantees', which are nothing but guaranteed misery.

And yes i am 38 and have a family.

Re: How the gig economy is making life harder for North American workers

#65

Post by maxxxxx »

FundThrowaway wrote: post #52
maxxxxx wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gig economy is already bad enough for workers but in the US it's even worse due to the health care situation. We should get rid of any advantages corporations have over individuals like health insurance.

Do you have the scourge of zero hour contracts in the US? Basically a person can be contractually obligated to work when demanded but with no guarantees of minimum hours or salary.

That's plain evil and should be illegal.

Re: How the gig economy is making life harder for North American workers

#66

Post by jadedhacker »

lynnah wrote: post #2

Disheartening. Interesting article. We need to get healthcare uncoupled from jobs.

There's a very reasonable proposal right here that would do it: https://berniesanders.com/medicareforall/ It could happen in a few years. Something to look forward to. :)

Re: How the gig economy is making life harder for North American workers

#67

Post by downrightmike »

maxxxxx wrote: post #65
FundThrowaway wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have the scourge of zero hour contracts in the US? Basically a person can be contractually obligated to work when demanded but with no guarantees of minimum hours or salary.

That's plain evil and should be illegal.

But the USA oligarchy want to keep it that way.

Re: How the gig economy is making life harder for North American workers

#68

Post by downrightmike »

abvdasker wrote: post #58
brohoolio wrote: post #4

What’s going to happen to gig wages when the economy hits a recession?

If there is anything beautiful about Uber it's that the marketplace maintained in each city is a relatively pure expression of supply and demand. A recession in which unemployment rates increase would probably lead to an increase in drivers (supply) from the displaced employees and a decrease in people with disposable income to take Ubers (demand) leading to a reduction in cost per ride and the associated driver wage…

People have a tendency to stay home more and "nest" during a recession. Or if they do go out, like in the last recession, people went to the movies. Which is why theaters rebounded in 2009-2010.

Re: How the gig economy is making life harder for North American workers

#69

Post by fulafel »

dionidium wrote: post #13
JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the allure for sure but I imagine quite quickly gets proven wrong as you find yourself working certain hours due to higher rates and/or increased demand. With wages that low (these are Uber's own figures too) and close to no upward mobility career wise, it seems like a colossal dead end one could easily become trapped in. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of drivers failed to adequately budget for the maintenance…

>I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of drivers failed to adequately budget for the maintenance costs of their car Nearly every car owner fails to adequately budget for (or even understand) the full cost of ownership of their car :) Edit: I forgot my audience for a second. Guys, college-educated engineers and 1% developers aren't typical . People routinely fail to properly account for the TCO. The entire auto-sales mode…

Even many engineers fail to account for the environmental externalities, which I must be part of any "full cost" model.

Re: How the gig economy is making life harder for North American workers

#70

Post by tankerslay »

cornellwright wrote: post #41
lynnah wrote: post #2

Disheartening. Interesting article. We need to get healthcare uncoupled from jobs.

This is completely right. I don't think people realize how much tying healthcare to full time employment hurts people and slow innovation. It makes people stick in bad situations and disadvantages small businesses both financially and in wasted time.

Health care has leeched a huge amount of wage growth from the economy, in businesses large and small.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-28/health-ca...

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