Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 401 posts

Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#211

Post by edmundsauto »

sojournerc wrote: post #186
bumby wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have insight into your father's perspective between the two? I've heard that cab driving, particularly in major metropolitan areas, was a racket in it's own sense (in terms of medallions being a form of indentured servitude) but I'd be curious if Uber has alleviated some of this or just caused people to leap from the frying pan into the fire.

I drove a cab for a summer after college, just before uber blew up. The lease for the cab was high enough ($600+/wk) that I had to drive ~30 hours to break even, and the rest was profit, usually another 20 hours over the weekend. Unless you were sharing a lease with another driver, it would've been impossible to work it as part time. So I would see a benefit to uber over that arrangement except for uber if your car b…

It wasn’t really profit - it was the money to pay your own wage. Now, if you took say $10 an hour out, it might be fair to say the rest is profit.

Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#212

Post by [deleted] »

googthrowaway42 wrote: post #4

"In California, one of the world’s wealthiest economies, I should be able to afford rent and pay my bills as a driver. I shouldn’t be forced to scour for public bathrooms or work 70-hour weeks to do this job. But that’s what these companies have forced upon us." "Uber may have bought itself a law, but it has not bought itself reprieve. All labor has dignity, and driving for Uber or Lyft should be no different." Cherr…

[deleted]

Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#215

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ericabiz wrote: post #51

My husband drives for Uber, and I’m glad the proposition passed as it is. He drives the way Uber was originally envisioned. He goes out some nights if there’s a surge, and in the morning on the way to work he points the app toward our stores and grabs a person (pre-pandemic) or a food delivery (today) on his way in. It pays for gas money, car maintenance, and then some. Some months he makes a few hundred dollars. Som…

If you want to understand Trump‘s original appeal to working class America, consider what it would take to convince high-income San Franciscans that drivers were not duped into supporting 22. That they were competently looking out for their interests better than a detached observer can.

Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#216

Post by intricatedetail »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #179
rtkwe wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same distinction between part time and full time work, a lot of things kick in when you work more than 35-40 hours for a company. It's not about limiting people's time it's about making sure companies don't take advantage of people. You can make a similar argument about all labor regulations, eg why limit people to 40 hours if they're willing to work more for the same pay if their employer doesn't want to pa…

> You can make a similar argument about all labor regulations, eg why limit people to 40 hours if they're willing to work more for the same pay if their employer doesn't want to pay overtime? Which is why all such regulations are ridiculous. You "help" someone by requiring higher pay for overtime, the employer responds by prohibiting overtime. The worker still wants more than 40 hours, so they take a second job, stil…

This is an eternal fight between people who think they know better and usurp power to decide about someone else's life and people who want to be in charge of their own destiny.

Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#217

Post by fennecfoxen »

gentaro wrote: post #204
fennecfoxen wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This says more about the label than the opposition. The "living wage" bakes in a variety of assumptions. First of all is the assumption that people shouldn't work if they're not out to earn a full-time living from that work. This view is typical of posh Americans who went to nice universities, had snazzy internships, and are now happily working full time. It gleefully ignores those who need to start lower, and get en…

The point that you're ignoring is that most people working these "entry-level" jobs in fact DO depend on them to cover their living expenses. What you're suggesting is to set those people in a race to the bottom along with the high school kid and retiree looking for "a little extra money". The point of setting a living wage is to set a bare minimum standard for employment. You'd also find that the same politicians pu…

No, that point that you're ignoring in pointing that out is that if they don't depend on these jobs then they're entirely unemployed. Chopping off the bottom of the labor market benefits a few people, yes, it just throws others who are less valuable to your political party into the abyss.

> You'd also find that the same politicians pushing a for a minimum wage are the ones trying to address broken housing policies.

Maybe, but not in New York and not in San Francisco. It's all "restrict the supply of housing" as if the laws of supply and demand are made up — indeed, they will deny supply and demand the same way a Koch-funded lobbyist tells you we should save the planet by burning more coal.

Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#218

Post by xtian »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #199
xtian wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your automobile analogy is actually extremely apt because when the car was invented and "jay drivers" (the original term) began killing hundreds of thousands of people, public consensus began to form around strictly limiting the speed of cars. The auto industry successfully lobbied local legislatures and shifted public opinion through a massive marketing campaign in order to create the crime of "jaywalking". This is…

I too wish roads could somehow be shared spaces again. But let's not fall into these simplistic black and white anti-establishment narratives. The automobile massively expanded personal liberty and employment options. Some of these effects were very pro-worker, like reducing the power of the dominant employers of localities, by letting workers more easily pull up stakes and find a new home in a different locality, or…

Labor market fluidity isn't pro-worker, it's an essential component of the commodification of labor. It simply means the shape of a person's life is more fully suborned to the demands of the market. It means competing on a national and often international market for wages. A workforce full of transplants is much less likely to organize and resist the agenda of capital than one with deep community roots and support structures.

In any case, I wasn't attempting to present a complete analysis of the societal effects of the automobile. I was only pointing out that this is another case of corporations explicitly dictating the terms of our society and using a massive outlay of cash to facilitate that and market it to us.

Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#219

Post by tasuki »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #192
SmokeyHamster wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point. People deserve to be paid what they agree to be paid. The value of money relative to a product or service is subjective. If Bob agrees to mow a lawn for $10, Joe doesn't have the right to object and demand that Bob be paid $20. That's immoral and not how markets should work.

So minimum wage shouldn’t be a thing? The problem with this thinking is that some people are desperate and don’t think about the choices they make. And without minimum wage, for example, companies would do a race to the bottom and people worse off would have to accept it. And Joe absolutely does have the right to object to it. If I see someone paying someone a $1 to mow a lawn, I can say they deserve more.

I'm all for minimum wage, but also this is a problem:

> some people are desperate and don’t think about the choices they make

Some people can't choose because they're in a desperate situation. And some people are in a desperate situation because they made many wrong choices. It's not easy to distinguish between the two. And it's certainly non-binary, but rather a spectrum. I think there can be a large difference between the two extremes of the spectrum.

Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#220

Post by boomboomsubban »

Jommi wrote: post #191
boomboomsubban wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If a furniture company gives you a contract to build them some chairs, do they give you the contact info for each person who buys a chair from them No, you put your brand on the chairs and if the customer likes them they can buy from you again. And I imagine Uber does forbid selling other services during rides. If not, I feel like Uber rides would be full of people pushing multi-level marketing.

Why are you even participating in conversation when you have not researched this at all? Uber doesn't forbid selling other services. Your point stands on flimsy sticks that are purely from your imagination.

Uber has signed deals allowing their drivers to sell other products during trips, I still bet its banned and poorly enforced at least.

https://www.uber.com/newsroom/uber-cargo-teaming-raise-prote...

Post reply on HN