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'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

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Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#111

Post by zackkatz »

reading-at-work wrote: post #74
zackkatz wrote: post #43

I found the best quote from the article to be the last: > “Horses in Central Park are regulated,” he pointed out. “There’s 150 of them. They make a great living there, the guys on the horse and buggies. Say Uber comes in and says, ‘We want to bring in Uber horses. And we want to add 100,000.’ And let’s see how the market will handle it. We know what’s going to happen. No one will make money. They’re all around Centra…

I'm genuinely curious, have you taken a cab lately? Can you honestly say you prefer that experience to what Uber or Lyft provides? I understand what that quote is saying, but I feel it's a false equivalency. There are already cars on the road in NYC. It's not like adding 10,000 horses to Central Park. Overall, the regulations on the taxi industry are the reason Uber and Lyft have been so successful - because they ski…

I disagree with many of the points made by the article. I just found that last quote to be the one that best summed-up the problem the cabbies find themselves in.

I’m a believer in mobility: if life isn’t working in NYC, then perhaps move to another place with fewer drivers and a lower cost of living. Just because you like a place and have roots there doesn’t mean life should be affordable and lovely. Much of human history is the story of leaving one place for another, in search of better living conditions.

It seems that they—like publishers were!—are mentally stuck in an old paradigm. Transportation has changed; adapt or move on.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#112

Post by geodel »

huffmsa wrote: post #27
refurb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I actually feel bad for medallion owners, even if the medallion system is a bad one. The gov't sets ups a system, tells you the rules and says "if you buy an expensive medallion, you can drive a cab and make a living". The value of the medallion is purely based on the gov't promise to maintain the system. So you buy one (or many) and a few years later someone does a work around and the gov't says "oh we…

Yes, it's purely based on artificial scarcity. Which historical never lasts. PanAm went bust because they banked on price fixed airline tickets. USPS benefited from national mail logistics only being available to government level endeavors. DeBeers is about to get crushed by artificial diamonds which are both cheaper and "better diamonds" than the massive stockpile they've accumulated. The rocket industry has long la…

Regarding DeBeers I heard they already control most of production capacity for artificial diamonds. So the price difference is not as much as many hoped between natural and artificial diamonds.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#113

Post by 345655433 »

lr4444lr wrote: post #57
refurb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I actually feel bad for medallion owners, even if the medallion system is a bad one. The gov't sets ups a system, tells you the rules and says "if you buy an expensive medallion, you can drive a cab and make a living". The value of the medallion is purely based on the gov't promise to maintain the system. So you buy one (or many) and a few years later someone does a work around and the gov't says "oh we…

There are reportedly about 14,000 medallions. At $1,000,000 a pop, it would not be too terrible to have a one-time buyout paid over several years as a compromise to ending the system.

Should we also give $1m to everyone who used to work in coalmining, steel puddling, and manufacture? Or is there something special about taxi drivers?

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#114

Post by falcolas »

p0wn wrote: post #96
carlmr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the medallions were stupid, although I think they shouldn't have allowed Uber to operate without medallions, or get rid of the system in general. >Relying on their "value" for retirement is crazy. And like another commenter has said - if it was worth 1.1 million, why not sell it and retire Because he took out a loan of 1.1 million to buy it. It's not that he bought it for next to nothing and it rose to that pric…

They allow non medallion cars aka the black private car service cars but I think you needed a medallion to pick up a person hailing a cab off the side of the road... ie you didn't call the car service to come pick you up. With uber they're still not picking people up that are physically hailing them. They are relying on technology aka smartphones to get around this.

Personal experience has shown that Ubers will in fact pick up folks who hail them, you just have to then set up the ride via the app afterwards.

Found this out while waiting an hour for an uber driver - three others drove by and responded to my waving them down to see if they were my uber, and offered to take me (looking back, I should have taken them up on the offer).

This, ironically, turned me on to the taxi system in NY. They were just more reliable at the time.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#116

Post by deft »

api wrote: post #84
reading-at-work wrote: post #67

"The reign of the all-powerful capitalist class has returned with a vengeance. The job conditions of working men and women, thrust backward, will not improve until they regain the militancy and rebuild the popular organizations that seized power from the capitalists." ... "The ruling capitalists will be as vicious as they were in the past. Nothing enrages the rich more than having to part with a fraction of their obs…

"Consumed by greed, rendered numb to human suffering by a life of hedonism and extravagance, devoid of empathy, incapable of self-criticism or self-sacrifice, surrounded by sycophants and leeches who cater to their wishes, appetites and demands, able to use their wealth to ignore the law and destroy critics and opponents, they are among the most repugnant of the human species." This psychological shift toward delusio…

I think everyone is well aware of that. In a successful socialist state neither party elites or bureaucrats should exist. In a capitalist state or authoritarian system those are designed and necessary groups.

Most people's objections to socialism are exactly what socialism is attempting to remove. Lenin, Stalin etc. did a terrible job.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#117

Post by coldtea »

>* A 65-year-old New York City cab driver from Queens, Nicanor Ochisor, hanged himself in his garage March 16, saying in a note he left behind that the ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft had made it impossible for him to make a living. It was the fourth suicide by a cab driver in New York in the last four months, including one Feb. 5 in which livery driver Douglas Schifter, 61, killed himself with a shotgun outside City Hall.*

These people needed to embrace change, reinvent themselves, and adapt to the new economy /s

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#118

Post by wmeredith »

reading-at-work wrote: post #74
zackkatz wrote: post #43

I found the best quote from the article to be the last: > “Horses in Central Park are regulated,” he pointed out. “There’s 150 of them. They make a great living there, the guys on the horse and buggies. Say Uber comes in and says, ‘We want to bring in Uber horses. And we want to add 100,000.’ And let’s see how the market will handle it. We know what’s going to happen. No one will make money. They’re all around Centra…

I'm genuinely curious, have you taken a cab lately? Can you honestly say you prefer that experience to what Uber or Lyft provides? I understand what that quote is saying, but I feel it's a false equivalency. There are already cars on the road in NYC. It's not like adding 10,000 horses to Central Park. Overall, the regulations on the taxi industry are the reason Uber and Lyft have been so successful - because they ski…

The fact that you prefer one experience over another doesn't make it profitable, sustainable, preferable, safe, etc... I myself prefer Uber to cabs, but I'm under no illusions that without VC money subsidizing my experience there would be no Uber rides for me to prefer.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#119

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

tootie wrote: post #83

This is a massive collision of laissez-faire crushing a command economy. Taxis in NYC were overregulated to the point that government was fixing supply to a specific number. Car services were unregulated to the point that they could charge whatever and hire whoever and drive whatever. The TLC should have eased off years ago.

On the other hand now we have a glut of black cars clogging the roads. I drove in the city during the last storm and it was glorious with all the Ubers off the streets.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#120

Post by maxxxxx »

douglaswlance wrote: post #28

It's never been easier to start a business. We need more CEOs and business owners, not more serfs. Lack of wage growth incentivizes people to find new, more value-producing work. Subsidizing low-income work is self-destructive.

We can't all be CEOs. To run a business you need people who work for you. Both employees and employers play an important role in the economy and both should be treated with respect.

Lack of wage growth also limits business creation. Most of us need some kind of reserve to start something. You can't start from absolutely zero while struggling to survive.

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