The sharing economy was always a scam
onezero.medium.com
The sharing economy was always a scam
1–10 of 179 posts
Re: The sharing economy was always a scam
#2Well, duh. Wasn't that obvious around the time Uber started?
Re: The sharing economy was always a scam
#3Indeed it is. I've posted and talked about this along with posting Richard D Wolff's video "Uber is an old scam"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwZcR0q6VE&t=10s
We've seen this before, at the beginning of a new industry. And once capitalism sets in, everyone is dragged down to a race to the bottom... Along with safety and human treatment.
And then once the abuses are rampant, people demand change in the way of regulation. And it works. Until prices then rise, and people are angry about the high prices of thing (Taxis).
And then, an upstart doing "app hailing" starts this all over again, with no quality, no assurances, no regulation, and sub-minimum wage payments, with no work protections.
Soon enough, the laws will finally roll in again as they did when Taxis were first made.
Re: The sharing economy was always a scam
#4Indeed it is. I've posted and talked about this along with posting Richard D Wolff's video "Uber is an old scam" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwZcR0q6VE&t=10s We've seen this before, at the beginning of a new industry. And once capitalism sets in, everyone is dragged down to a race to the bottom... Along with safety and human treatment. And then once the abuses are rampant, people demand change in the way of regu…
What a bunch of turd nonsense. You dont understand economics. So stay out of it.
Re: The sharing economy was always a scam
#5The claim was never that "‘Sharing’ was supposed to save us" nor any of the other allegations in the article. In fact there never was any unified claims.
Of course the individual companies made claims about how their platform would save you a bit of time and money and friction. And that has largely been true. Millions of people each saves a little time and money, and that in aggregate has benefited us tremendously.
The sharing economy never promised the moon.
Re: The sharing economy was always a scam
#6Indeed it is. I've posted and talked about this along with posting Richard D Wolff's video "Uber is an old scam" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwZcR0q6VE&t=10s We've seen this before, at the beginning of a new industry. And once capitalism sets in, everyone is dragged down to a race to the bottom... Along with safety and human treatment. And then once the abuses are rampant, people demand change in the way of regu…
> Until prices then rise
Which they didn't do entirely through the invisible hand. In many areas, taxi regulation was also used limit competition (e.g. medallion systems, unnecessarily difficult licensing exams). In addition to higher prices it permitted lower quality service. If you want to prevent destructive wildfires, you need to do forest management to reduce the fuel that builds up. The taxi industry was a forest full of dry, dead wood ready to burn.
Re: The sharing economy was always a scam
#7The title seems totally unsupported by the article to me. A less misleading one might be "The 'sharing economy' has evolved into a collection of large, unregulated, rental businesses"
Re: The sharing economy was always a scam
#8The claim was never that "‘Sharing’ was supposed to save us" nor any of the other allegations in the article. In fact there never was any unified claims. Of course the individual companies made claims about how their platform would save you a bit of time and money and friction. And that has largely been true. Millions of people each saves a little time and money, and that in aggregate has benefited us tremendously. T…
Who is "us"? Maybe upper middle class consumers, but not the workers at these companies.
Re: The sharing economy was always a scam
#9The claim was never that "‘Sharing’ was supposed to save us" nor any of the other allegations in the article. In fact there never was any unified claims. Of course the individual companies made claims about how their platform would save you a bit of time and money and friction. And that has largely been true. Millions of people each saves a little time and money, and that in aggregate has benefited us tremendously. T…
Who is "us"? Maybe upper middle class consumers, but not the workers at these companies.
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Re: The sharing economy was always a scam
#10Indeed it is. I've posted and talked about this along with posting Richard D Wolff's video "Uber is an old scam" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwZcR0q6VE&t=10s We've seen this before, at the beginning of a new industry. And once capitalism sets in, everyone is dragged down to a race to the bottom... Along with safety and human treatment. And then once the abuses are rampant, people demand change in the way of regu…
> Until prices then rise Which they didn't do entirely through the invisible hand. In many areas, taxi regulation was also used limit competition (e.g. medallion systems, unnecessarily difficult licensing exams). In addition to higher prices it permitted lower quality service. If you want to prevent destructive wildfires, you need to do forest management to reduce the fuel that builds up. The taxi industry was a fore…
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/02/nyregion/taxi-drivers-sui...
It's easy to be cavalier if you ignore the effect on Taxi workers. Ride sharing replaced a stable, unionized, middle class career with low-paying, low-benefit gig jobs. It ruined people's lives and destroyed a stable field of work. This wasn't a technological innovation -- it was a legal one, where they figured out a way to evade regulations to undercut the current system and drive down wages.