
The desperate hustle as a way of life - timr
http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/the-news-hole/desperate-hustle-way-life/
======
neilk
The argument has an emotional resonance, but does it really make sense? It's
not like working for big employers (and entrusting Wall Street with one's
retirement) worked out really well in the past decade either.

Every company is out there "hustling", as they compete with one another. So is
it so much better to delegate the hustling aspect of life to one's CEO? Or are
we all just turning over power and rewards to those people, in exchange for a
quieter life?

It does get at the question - what are companies even for? According to free
market theories, we should _all_ be selling our labor freelance. The standard
answer for a long while was that transaction costs would be too high. So
possibly AirBnB and Uber are solving that, and more of us can jettison the
dead weight of having bosses who specialize in hustling.

The only problem is that they are completely artificial "markets", and they're
taking a tremendous percentage. You're not hustling on the free market, you're
hustling on the totally-controlled-by-AirBnB market. And the company has no
long-term responsibility to any individual operator, and there's probably
never going to be anything like an AirBnB hosts' union. Right now, the sharing
economy companies will try hard to make life good for the sharers, but they
may not always be so aligned.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_According to free market theories, we should all be selling our labor
freelance._

This is incorrect. If the disutility to an employer of absorbing short term
risk is lower than the disutility to the employee, it makes perfect sense. And
similarly, if an employer has a comparative advantage over the employee for
hustling, specialization makes sense.

There are also large tax incentives (most notably relating to medical
spending) for full time employment.

"Free market theories" don't generally oppose risk mitigation strategies,
specialization or exploiting economies of scale.

~~~
tsotha
In more general terms employment is an agreement between employer and
employee. If you're willing to give your employer a better price for your
labor in return for some measure of security you'll probably find an employer
with whom you can come to some arrangement, assuming there's any demand at all
for your skill.

Where I work we have a ridiculously complicated project with crazy business
rules and hundreds of thousands of C++ lines written over twenty years. It
takes an entire year for someone to become productive. My employer pays people
on that project very well and tries to keep them happy so they won't leave and
take that year of training out the door.

~~~
pvdm
Is that year of training worth anything once you walk out the door ?

~~~
tsotha
No, it isn't. But it represents sunk costs to my employer.

------
jmzbond
This is a really interesting perspective thanks for sharing. I don't think
anyone intended to create this shadow economy. The founders of AirBnB,
TaskRabbit, Lyft, and the like did not create those services with the
intention that people hustle full-time. More that it was a stopover to get
some cash in an economy where you might need it and a place where cost of
living is high. But I very much agree that this piece demonstrates perverse
incentives. As someone else posted on here, it's not right if people hustle to
the extent of crashing with their friend's parent's cousins every day just so
they can list their places on AirBnB.

The other point though, is that I don't think we'll have decades of hustle
anyways, because the point of many of these services is to catalyze a culture
of sharing that we've lost. Once we gain it back, then Lyft, Uber, and the
like (as one example) can shift from drivers that drive around looking for
rides (which is hardly sharing so much as a homegrown taxi), into truly
picking up people when convenient for their usual routes. Of course, this
depends on these organizations not being swayed by perverse incentives
themselves.

We'll see!

~~~
epicureanideal
One thought that occurred to me while reading this was the similarity to how
tuition increases by however much the government provides in subsidies.

Perhaps the reason we'll all need to "hustle as a way of life" is because by
making it easy enough for everyone to do, everyone's earning potential is
increased, and our entire earning potential gets soaked up by higher rents and
other limited-quantity commodities we all compete for.

~~~
phreeza
I believe that is what inflation means.

~~~
tormeh
Money is a leaky abstraction. What epicureanideal was really saying is that
everyone's potential to create things or services of value to other people
increase. Assuming people act on this potential and the monetary base stays
constant we will get deflation. Of course, Uber and AirBnB are partly
replacing taxi rides and hotel rooms - the total amount of rides and rooms for
hire will stay more or less constant. So deflation for that reason is
unlikely. It's not about the value of money overall.

But what are taxi drivers or hotel staff going to do? They can lower their
prices (and thereby limit Uber/ArBnB) or they can do something else. Probably
something less enjoyable and/or lower paying, or they would already be doing
it. So money moves from professionals to hobbyists and the firms that organize
the hobbyist movements. But who are the hobbyists really? Not millionaires, I
would bet. The Uber drivers may be hotel staff and the AirBnB hoteliers may be
taxi drivers. People who need money, in other words. So lower-class services
get less expensive, low-class people get less purchasing potential and the
potential go to the middle-upper class people at Uber/AirBnB directly, and to
other trades not suited for hobbyisation indirectly.

It doesn't look very good.

~~~
fennecfoxen
> They can lower their prices (and thereby limit Uber/ArBnB) or they can do
> something else. Probably something less enjoyable and/or lower paying, or
> they would already be doing it.

I'm not really sure that the money-flow works the way you think it does. When
I stayed in London last week at AirBnB instead of the hotel which was
literally next door, the savings wasn't _just_ hotel labor (which I mostly
didn't need). It also meant money that could have gone to the hotel owners
(capitalists with multi-million pound investments) instead went to a family
which was spending time abroad on a cycle-tour through Germany.

~~~
mrow84
> It also meant money that could have gone to the hotel owners (capitalists
> with multi-million pound investments) instead went to a family which was
> spending time abroad on a cycle-tour through Germany.

The money you would have paid to a hotel would have been split between the
employees and the owners. For your Airbnb stay, a 6-12% guest service fee [0]
and a 3% host service fee [1] was paid to Airbnb, who are analogous to the
owners in the hotel situation.

You are perfectly right that you made savings by not paying for services you
didn't want, but the "sharing" model hasn't eliminated the role of the
capitalist class, which is implied by your post.

To take a much broader view, although our global production capacity has
increased markedly, so has our consumption, which ultimately causes prices of
these goods to remain relatively high to people on locally average incomes.
One might hypothecate that we could maintain our higher production with a
significantly smaller global population (and correspondingly lower
consumption), which would make real inroads into lowering prices for common
goods, but I really have no idea as to whether or not that is true.

[0]
[https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/question/104](https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/question/104)
[1]
[https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/question/63](https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/question/63)

------
scythe
AirBnB, Lyft, etc certainly take advantage of the underemployment boom -- but
did they _cause_ it? It seems unfair to blame two relatively small companies
for the result of multiple regulatory failures across multiple industries,
especially considering that neither existed in its current form when the crash
happened.

~~~
neumann
I don't think the article is blaming these companies for the current
employment situation. It highlights that these business models are deemed
clever and entrepreneurial while in fact supporting a wage model whereby
everybody is responsible for the hustle, working on commission... employment
as a service if you will. This in of itself isn't bad, but the article makes
the point that this approach leads to an employment where nobody can just work
for a fair wage, everybody is hustling. I thought it was a very thoughtful and
interesting piece that revealed one of the long term consequence of something
that everybody seems to be celebrating, this 'liberation' of service (and
employment).

------
ryanmarsh
Hustling has been the ONLY way of life until very recently, perhaps the past
few hundred years. This is really only since yesterday as far as the history
of humanity is concerned. Things could be better in the U.S. for the middle
class but we are still wealthy as far as most of the planet's population is
concerned. I'm sorry I have no sympathy for the author's chief complaint. You
can still find a nice quiet well paying job at a place like Exxon or Goodyear
where you can in fact work until retirement. You could also choose to live in
a place that isn't so expensive that the only way to survive is to hustle.
Then you could save a little money, purchase some income producing assets, and
become a capitalist yourself.

Given all that, some of us do enjoy the hustle. For us, the only true safety
is that which we provide for ourselves through the hustle.

~~~
alwillis
The hustle isn’t anything new; anyone who’s lived in what’s termed the inner-
city knows about people selling bootleg CDs and DVDs on the street and people
offering rides for money--they’re called 'gypsy cabs' in Boston. Most of the
people who participate in this underground economy are desperate to keep a
roof over their heads and to know they’ll have a next meal.

The author is pointing out that companies like AirBnB ($776.40 million in
funding:
[http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airbnb](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airbnb))
and Lyft ($332.50 million in funding:
[http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/lyft](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/lyft))
are monetizing this desperation and asking: are we as a society okay with
this?

When you take this point of view, you can kind of see why they (the companies
and investors) use the warm and fuzzy term ‘the sharing economy’, which puts a
nice spin on it. Sharing is good, right?

It’s a slippery slope issue too: what else will get monetized in the name of
the sharing economy? People often share prescription drugs with each other
now; you could totally see an app that lets you see everyone around you who’s
willing to share their Prozac or whatever.

------
dnautics
Now, I drive for lyft (full-time) while I'm waiting for the IRS to approve my
nonprofit's 501(c)3 status. It pays better than being a postdoc (about 20%
better, also I had the 'foresight' to buy a hybrid car back in 2010). That
says something about how the academic science industry has been captured to
the point where labor costs are depressed to where it's better for me to have
a job that doesn't require my PhD. The article writer should keep in mind that
the leaders of academia are very much neoliberals often claiming to try to
emulate the "profit-free" incentive structure "of europe" \- and they're doing
way, way worse than corporate america.

Back to Lyft: Some of my 'coworkers' can't even do math (I met up with one to
try to help him figure out the tax situation, deep down it was painful for me
to see the blank stares he gave me when I tried to show him how to convert
miles per gallon to dollars per mile). But he's making by, and probably better
than he would be without Lyft.

The author writes, "think for just a minute about what this means for the
prospect of honest work". I don't know what his definition of honest work is,
but to me it's this: Provide a service or good to someone that wants it. Go
back and watch "school ties", where the dad tells his son about the scrappers
picking valuables out of the dump, that at least that's "honest work". Lyft is
"honest work". When I'm out there, I'm giving someone something they want, at
a fair price, and having a social byproduct of keeping drunk people off the
streets and giving vulnerable people a way to get home without worrying about
getting stiffed for money, groped by an unscrupulous driver, or harrassed for
being gay.

The kicker? I can't say that anything I did in my last postdoc has any real
social or individual value that compares. Yeah, there was a 401k plan and
healthcare coverage, and all the trappings of a 'real job' except poor
compensation. But it wasn't _honest work_.

------
facepalm
I don't see a future for Lyft and things like that. I don't see how semi-
private people are supposed to manage their cars and apartments more
efficiently than professionals. So if anything, those services will be
transitional (until nobody owns their own car anymore).

That said, I really don't agree with the sense of entitlement from that post.
The real world actually is tough. Just because we managed at times to build a
small layer of security on top of it, doesn't mean everybody is entitled to
it.

I don't think there is a conspiracy to deprive people of their job security,
it is just a developing reality. And quite frankly, I think everybody should
take responsibility for their own life. People might actually be better off if
they do that.

~~~
marvin
This doesn't make sense. What you're saying is that the world is a shitty
place, for a while it was less shitty and now it's going to shit again.

We've never been more technologically sophisticated. It's never been cheaper
to stay alive. It's never been easier to produce cheap, valuable goods to
ensure that people can have a good life.

It's not about job security, it's about making sure that everyone can afford a
bare minimum of dignity and living standard. If you read between the lines,
the author of this story calls for sensible regulation to ensure that this
continues to be the case, and that regular people aren't exploited for
economic gain. While this might be a controversial topic in some circles, I
don't think your average middle-class family would object.

It is _obvious_ that the continued technological developments, including
automation, will cause an amount of pain and strife. This is why we should
meet these problems head-on. Increased automation should mean more wealth and
a better life for everyone. The status quo, at least in the US, has meant a
poorer median and vastly increased wealth differences between the top and the
median. The latter of these points is not in itself a problem, but the first
is. That's where the problem lies.

~~~
facepalm
If the means are there to make life nice for everyone, I am all for it.
However, I am not convinced it is actually the case. If we had some good
years, it might also just have been luck: for example using up oil, which is
like a lottery win for society (free energy, but limited), or exploiting
people in other countries (cheap washing machines and clothes).

Do you think there is actually no risk in our modern world? Otherwise, why
should some people (company owners) be forced to shoulder the risk for other
people?

If there ever was a period where life was easy for everyone, how long did it
actually last? WW2 ended 1945. I think it must have been between then and now.
In between there was the Vietnam war, cold war, various economic crises, and
so on. Maybe that classic "be a factory worker with lots of benefits and pay
for your family and home" only ever lasted a couple of years? I guess it is
mostly known from movies from the 50ies?

I am not actually as hardcore as it sounds. I think people should look out for
each other, and society should strive to make everybody have a good life. I'm
just not convinced that employee entitlement is the correct way to go about
it.

Note that job security is also something society pays a price for (it's
factored into the prices of products - if a company has to stick to brewing
horses and musn't switch to car manufacturing, because they employ a lot of
horse breeders, society pays by having to do with less efficiency). As a
freelancer, I don't understand why I should pay for somebody else's job
security?

~~~
_broody
As a freelancer, you're not paying for someone else's job security, you are
actually _benefitting_ from it. Job security (and employment benefits in
general) are huge mitigating factors against the stress of the modern worker's
life, it's what allows them to function at a good level which sustains the
company that's hiring you as a freelancer to begin with.

Staying at the top of Maslow's pyramid of needs is _much_ more fundamental for
a productive, healthy society to exist than the purported efficiency you think
you would achieve by taking people's job security away.

That we're talking of a 'desperate hustle' to survive is indeed very bad news
of our society in this context. If all people can think of is of ways of
scraping by to survive, and do that 24/7, they don't have time to create,
innovate, research and do actual good, meaningful things. And yet, that's
where we're inevitably headed.

In the modern era, workers have been facing a steadily increasing amount of
stress and pressure due to the ever-accelerating pace of change in our
society. With every passing decade, more and more we've found that we have to
be on the edge, or else who knows if our job will be automated away or
outsourced to another country to never come back.

This is _why_ the 'desperate hustle' has come about. Today, workers know they
can't cut it, they can't keep up, they just take it all in bravely -the pay
cuts, the longer work hours, the loss of security and benefits, all hardships
which had supposedly been left behind. We have come full circle, and it's not
a good place to be.

~~~
facepalm
So you think life would be better if there was less change? For example if we
hadn't changed from horses to cars? I think people change their ways of living
because the new ways are more efficient or convenient. Why would they change
to a worse state.

I think you are wrong when you claim that I don't pay for other people's job
security. That job security is costing companies money (for example because
they can't fire people they don't need anymore), and that cost is factored
into their products.

I didn't mean freelancers specifically pay for that, society in general does.
But employees get the job security in return - freelancers don't get anything
in return. You make the argument about stability of companies - OK, maybe that
is a factor, but I would like to see some research that shows it is
significant.

------
gojomo
Another similarly-bleak take on the 'sharing' economy:

[http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust-
economy/](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust-economy/)

(Forwarded as an interesting set of thoughts, not endorsement.)

------
dpatru
It's fine to want to earn more money as long as you don't do this by taking
away other people's freedoms. No one has the right to use force on others for
their own ends. No one has the right to take away other people's right to
contract in order to maintain an above-market price. So for example: the
minimum wage takes away the rights of employers and would-be employees to
contract at low wages in order to allow some workers to charge above-market
wages. Taxi medallions take away the rights of passengers and drivers to
contract for cheap fares in order to allow taxi companies to charge above-
market fares. Not only are such laws economically wasteful, but they are
immoral in the same sense that slavery is immoral: they take away one's
freedom to contract.

~~~
Karellen
Are you also against big government taking away our freedom to keep the entire
proceeds of those contracts, in the form of taxes, which it then redistributes
to the poor?

You know, so that despite having a job paying $0.50/hr, people can still
afford to buy enough food to eat for themselves, and so they can afford to
live somewhere heated in the winter?

Or are you fully behind an individual's right to die of starvation and/or
hypothermia, because if they really cared about living, they'd... uh...
ummm... shit - what is it they'd do again?

Out of curiosity, are you and 99% of the people you know relatively well off,
and not in forseeable danger of running out of food or warmth any time in the
next decade or so? Do you, as the saying goes, got yours?

I got mine, but I am somewhat concerned about the other people in my community
who don't. I don't want to step over their bodies, rather, I'd like to help
them get out of the pit they're in - however they got there. Be that being
born into poverty, or falling into a career 20 years ago which has since been
automated away, or through illness, or just bad bloody luck. So I'll give to
charity and food banks, but I'd rather that people could get jobs _which pay
well enough_ that they don't need to use 'em.

As for the people that got theirs but are content to say "fuck you Jack" to
those that don't, they're not the kind of people I want to share my community,
or country, with.

With thanks to
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf013ID8lCE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf013ID8lCE)

~~~
dpatru
> I am somewhat concerned about the other people in my community who don't
> [have theirs].

If you're concerned about people in your community who are poor, why do you
oppose letting them make employment contracts which will make them better off?
The minimum wage makes it illegal for them to contract for jobs that they are
actually qualified for, i.e., very low-paying jobs.

Very low-paying jobs are for employment what remedial courses are for college
education. Eliminating remedial courses in college which would mean that
people with very low levels of education could not get started with college.
The minimum wage, by eliminating low-paying jobs, prevents low-skilled people
from getting started with employment.

> As for the people that got theirs but are content to say "fuck you Jack" to
> those that don't, they're not the kind of people I want to share my
> community, or country, with.

Not only are you against allowing people to contract, you also want to deport
people who exercise their right to speak. This is not a cheap shot. When you
are willing to violate a basic human right like the freedom to contract,
you're likely morally blind enough to be willing to violate other human
rights.

The choice of violating the right to contract and trade or letting someone
starve is a false one. In fact, a major cause (though not the only cause) of
poverty is restrictions on contracts and trade, mostly by governments. There
are examples of this everywhere. The article mentioned taxis. Driving a car
safely is a basic skill that many otherwise unskilled people can do. Taxis
should be very cheap, plentiful, and temporary job for people who need
something to do while they work on doing something more useful. Instead,
government restricts the supply of taxis making taxis expensive and relatively
scarce. This hurts people who need transportation, it hurts people who would
like to provide transportation but cannot, and it hurts people who could be
doing something more useful for society but don't because they are earning
more than they should as taxi drivers.

~~~
Karellen
"why do you oppose letting them make employment contracts which will make them
better off?"

I would argue that those contracts do _not_ make those people better off.
People want to work, want to be productive, want to feel like they're not
taking charity to feed themselves. So they'll take 3 jobs and try to survive
on 5 hours sleep a night to do that, running their health into the ground,
because employers will gladly take advantage of people's need to feel
productive, while setting them all against each other to drive wages as low as
the most desperate person to work will accept.

"The minimum wage, by eliminating low-paying jobs, prevents low-skilled people
from getting started with employment."

Huh? First, minimum-wage jobs generally are "low-paying, low-skilled" jobs.
Are you saying that restaurants would prefer to employ a new dish-washer at
$7.25/hr if they'd previously been... catching rats bare-handed for $2/hr?
Also, how do you account for the fact that low-skilled people manage to find
low-paying jobs in countries that have better minimum wages than the US?

"Not only are you against allowing people to contract, you also want to deport
people who exercise their right to speak. This is not a cheap shot."

Um, yes, it is.

"When you are willing to violate a basic human right like the freedom to
contract, you're likely morally blind enough to be willing to violate other
human rights."

Such as, the freedom to contract yourself into slavery? Or the freedom to
contact buying food and/or medicine from a supplier who has not been subjected
to any FDA checks because they assure you that you can trust them that they
don't need any of that gub'mint interferin'?

The US already puts limits on the kinds of contacts that people can enter
into, especially with large corporations, because they realise that there is a
great imbalance at work. Corporations have a lot of incentive to fuck people
over if they can get away with it, and a highly concentrated amount of
expertise, time, and effort to put into doing their best to make that happen.
While individuals are often inexpert in many fields, and do not have the time
- even if they have relevant expertise - to push back against every
corporation they deal with day-to-day, and the effort they expend doing so is
disproportionate to the amount of benefit they personally will receive.
Individuals' efforts are diffuse compared to those of a company, even more so
when compared to the efforts of many companies trying to accomplish a goal
together, like drive wages down.

The US also even has limits on speech, where speech can cause an immediate and
direct threat to the safety of others.

I would argue that it is not moral blindness to limit the rights of some,
where the exercise of those rights affects the wellbeing of others. Yes,
limiting rights is dangerous, but I would argue that that simply means that it
needs to be done carefully, in persuit of a specific goal, and only as much as
appears to be necessary to achieve that goal - with the acknowledgement that
it not be done at all if the goal appears unattainable; not that is must not
be done ever.

No-one's rights are absolute, they always start get fuzzy when the exercise
thereof starts to interfere with the wellbeing of others. Your right to swing
your fist ends at my nose.

"Instead, government restricts the supply of taxis making taxis expensive and
relatively scarce."

Yeah, I'm totally with you on the taxis thing.

~~~
dpatru
> employers will gladly take advantage of people's need to feel productive,
> while setting them all against each other to drive wages as low as the most
> desperate person to work will accept.

By this logic, all wages should be at the minimum wage, because without
government setting a lower bound, employers would just keep setting employees
against each other and thus drive wages lower. Why then do some people earn
more than the minimum wage? Do they work for companies that do not try select
the most profitable workers?

Don't employers also have to compete with each other for the best workers?

Don't workers too have the opportunity to choose among competing employers?

> Such as, the freedom to contract yourself into slavery?

People choose to enslave themselves all the time, just not to employers. The
most common slave-masters today are alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and other
vices.

~~~
onetwofiveten
The argument being made is that employers have a lot more market power in the
employment market than potential employees. Employers have capital, they have
inertia so they can absorb a lot more risk. There are fewer employers than
employees so it is easy for them to form a cartel or engage in price fixing.
This especially goes for low end jobs, where a small number of large
corporations make up much of the retail and fast food market. Unemployed
individuals are under a lot of pressure to find employment quickly, and they
know there is a lot of competition. So, employers can set wages artificially
low. This power is not absolute, which explains why not every job is at
minimum wage. However, this is an observable effect. The gap between rich and
poor is ever widening, the middle class is eroding away, yet all the while
production has been increasing. Wages are being driven down artificially low.

I wanted to ask "where does it all end?" but then I realised from the rest of
your comment, you actually seem okay with slavery. Which is odd really,
because you argue about human rights, but the right to freedom of movement is
actually a far more fundamental and clear cut human right than the right to
form contracts and do trade. In fact, if your ideals about the right to form
contracts result in other people losing their right to freedom of movement,
then that's a clear sign that you have lost your way.

~~~
dpatru
> The gap between rich and poor is ever widening,

The "gap" between the rich and poor is a function of possible productivity. As
it becomes possible for people to do more, there will be more of a spread
between people who do nothing and people who max out their potential. When all
farmers worked farmed by hand, the "gap" between the lazy and the industrious
was a few bushels of food. But now that there are tractors and financing
available, the top farmers produce maybe thousands of times more than the
little farmers.

The situation is similar in every field, especially those involving mass
distributions. An interesting youtube video can get millions of times more
views than an ordinary video. Is this a problem? Should we force people to
watch uninteresting videos, or cap the interesting videos to reduce the
viewing gap?

I don't see why increased productivity should be a concern, especially since
being productive today generally means imparting benefits to large numbers of
people. Larry Page is very rich, but he got that way by helping everybody with
an internet connection to find useful information.

> . . . the middle class is eroding away, yet all the while production has
> been increasing. Wages are being driven down artificially low.

I don't understand what you mean by "artificially low" wages. Wages are
generally set by supply and demand. As long as people are free to choose
alternatives, they are not working for artificially low wages. An example of
people with artificially low wages are prisoners who must take the work
offered to them by prison officials. But the majority of people are not in
prison.

> you actually seem okay with slavery

I'm all for stamping out slavery where it is committed by one person against
another. No one should take away another's right to contract. But where a
person voluntarily degrades himself, I see that as his choice, not mine.

> the right to freedom of movement is actually a far more fundamental and
> clear cut human right than the right to form contracts and do trade.

I agree that freedom of movement is a fundamental right. I'm not sure if it's
more important that the right to contract or trade. I think it's less
fundamental because there are a few situations where you could legitimately
not have freedom of movement (while traveling in an airplane or trespassing),
but I can think of very few situations where you wouldn't have the right to
contract. (You might have contracted away your right to make future contracts
for a limited time and subject-matter.)

------
cconcepts
"Wonder, for just a second, if we’re sharing the wrong things with the wrong
people."

What wrong people? As the economy is globalized people who get paid yet don't
make a contribution to the economy will be dug out - whats wrong with that?
The only people who should be afraid are the ones who make money by not
contributing. If you're observant enough to provide something useful that
people want there will always be a place for you. If you want to coast and get
paid for it then, yeah, this is gonna hurt.

~~~
djillionsmix
>The only people who should be afraid are the ones who make money by not
contributing.

Should be? sure. Are? No, those people are mostly at the top of the economy.

~~~
cconcepts
haha, nice point. At least some of them are at the top

------
DanielBMarkham
Ouch. More bitter privileged snarkiness posing as commentary.

Over the years, I have come to understand that some people just want to punch
a clock. They don't want to challenge themselves during their work hours, they
don't want to think too much or take too much risk. They just want to punch a
clock and get a paycheck.

I am not like this, but people tell me there are many that are. I am a risk-
taking person looking to challenge myself to create systems that help people.

Most of the folks who think like me fail. That's fine. That's part of our
lifestyle. The smart ones have a side job and manage to continue failing until
something works out.

I am beginning to feel really sorry for the other folks. The world has always
been the way it is now. It's just that before you guys were helping some of
the rest of us out. Now we don't need as many of you as we did before. So
there are a lot of little opportunities making less money instead of just one
large opportunity where you didn't have to think about it any more.

If I understand the irrationality of the human species, the next step will be
to call for a minimum hour law, or some such construction. We seem to be
really good at spotting problems and not so good at understanding how the
problems came about in the first place. (or even whether they are problems or
not. Most of the time, what passes for problem-spotting is just emoting)

~~~
infosample
So because people who would rather be an employee than an entrepreneur "don't
want to challenge themselves" and "don't want to think too much"?

I believe you've contributed to more bitter privileged snarkiness posing as
commentary.

Job creators like yourself don't need as many workers to do the same jobs as
before but true innovators realize many people do want a challenge and to
think. You failed to incentivize your employees. Those who utilize capital,
technology, AND labor in this post industrial age will win.

------
ilaksh
Interesting perspective. I think the sharing economy is more of a symptom than
a cause though. The economy as a whole is squeezing society. I believe that
there are fundamental structural problems that require core aspects of our
system to be re-engineered. I don't think its as simple as giving everyone
money or more regulation or less regulation. I think we need to make
improvements to the underlying paradigm. That requires testing changes that
are very different from what has been tried before. And changing fundamental
assumptions.

------
brongondwana
I see a lot of this as a logical extension of your toxic tipping culture. For
many jobs, a large part of income is already based on the hustle for tips.
Every interaction is a transaction.

Australia is partially along the same path, though our strong anti-tipping
culture (we have a reputation as poor tippers overseas) helps resist it.

Still, living in Norway was a great alternative perspective - where everyone
in a regular job was paid a living wage, and the hustle was really only on the
very outskirts of society rather than sewn right through it.

------
derwiki
This article focuses on shareconomy services that operate in legal gray areas,
particularly Uber/Lyft and AirBnB. Can the same arguments be made for
shareconomy services that are perfectly legal? Such as: tool sharing, camera
lending, bike sharing?

~~~
nnq
In a way anything that lowers the minimum cost of living can be bad, because
employers will exploit this to justify paying less and society will label the
ones that don't want to lower their baseline as "overspenders" (even if it may
overall encourage you to spend more on other unneeded luxuries...).

By sharing your bike or any other thing you make the cost of making use of a
bike lower. A more appropriate example would be for a family to own a second
or a third car. If you own a second car, you have one more item that you own
but don't absolutely need, therefore an item that provides financial security
and independence because you can sell it when in need of money (even if at a
lower value, it's still a way to get instant cash for an emergency). This is
the kind of financial security that will allow you to show your boss the
middle finger or ask for a bigger wage, because you know that that if you get
fired you can still get by until you find another job, or you have enough
stuff to sell and move to another place even if you bank accounts get frozen
etc.

This is good because:

1\. it make people less likely to accept a lower wage, driving wages up

2\. it makes people with very risky but innovative ideas willing to start a
business from their garage, because they know they still have enough savings
to not end up homeless if everything goes south (note: I'm referring to the
kind of ideas _no sane VC would throw a penny at_ , but might very well change
the world)

3\. it makes people give more to charity, in two ways: (a) most people donate
at some time the things that they buy but not use and (b) the fact that you
"own stuff" gives you a sense of security that makes you worry less about your
future and care more about the needs of others (dunno how healthy this way of
thinking is, but this is how our minds work)

I know it's not a fashionable mindset, but I think that _owning more_ ,
_sharing less_ and _giving (away) more_ (or reselling at way-below-market
prices, which is close enough to it and doesn't hurt anyone's pride :)... ) is
a much healthier, financially secure and more freedom promoting way of living
than what we seem to encourage today! (because when you "share" you must
create restrictions and limit people's freedoms, whereas when you give away
something you also give away the freedom to use however they see it fit, and
when you own something you don't have to limit freedom by imposing "fair use"
policies because you are the single user)

~~~
maxerickson
I don't see how a depreciating second car works better than a bank account for
what you are describing.

I guess there are probably some differences in the way people approach
payments that they have to make and payments to their own savings accounts.
But still, I'm pretty sure that saving more and consuming less is a more
effective strategy for financial security than buying things you don't need.

------
dkarapetyan
Those services are making certain market transactions more efficient and that
is a good thing. Whether people realize that not all things should be viewed
as markets and transactions is another matter altogether.

------
rfrey
> I did not yet understand then that those having or wanting just a job—just a
> job with decent pay—would be disparaged as “takers.”

Where is this true? I haven't seen this even in SV, much less on The Outside.

~~~
rtpg
There is an implicit attitude I've felt in the dev community that you're
supposed to spend every waking moment of your life absorbing information about
your work.

Seeing how I'm commenting at 11 PM on a Sunday on this I guess I'm among those
that do spend every waking moment on this stuff, but a lot of developers don't
because its _just a job_.

Being up to date is one thing, doing it on your off time is another.

~~~
rfrey
Sure, I agree there's lots of professional pressure on our outside-work time.
But I haven't seen the attitude that if you're not _self-employed_ , or aspire
to be an entrepreneur, then you're a parasite, a "taker".

(My read on the "just a job" in the linked article is that it was referring to
people not wanting to freelance, rather than people who wanted to work-for-
the-weekend.)

------
QuantumChaos
The author is operating under the strange notion that doing a transaction
outside the context of full-time work, or operating a business, is illegal.

Maybe businesses like Lyft, Uber and AirBnB facilitate people working in legal
grey areas, but they also facilitate direct individual-customer relationships.
These open up markets, and are therefore bad for incumbents (e.g. people
already in the taxi industry) but good for people who for whatever weren't
able to work in that industry before.

And what's with referring to people as "kids"? Is this how you assert your
status as alpha male?

~~~
QuantumChaos
Just to clarify for the downvoters:

>Today there are people all over Baltimore subleasing places they don’t own,
peddling without a license, hacking. This is a criminal offense. The law does
not recognize the right of the people to earn enough to eat.

>All these entrepreneurs, most of them running little scams to get by, all of
them held in contempt by the law and by most of society. Lyft and Uber and Air
BnB face legal sanction too—but it’s just a civil matter.

The author clearly conflates the two issues of (A) not working for an employer
or company, and (B) transactions that are illegal.

I already said how these _may_ be linked in some cases. But it is unreasonable
to imply that any work that is not done for an employer (preferable while
working full time) must be some kind of scam.

EDIT: I'm not sure I like the new HN where I can't say something that is
manifestly true (as proven by my quotes) without getting massively downvoted.

~~~
CPLX
He's actually making a much simpler argument that may be unfamiliar to those
not familiar with the underground economies of the inner city.

What he's saying is that the basic transaction that Uber or Lyrt facilitate is
not novel, that people have been using single family residences as informal
transient hotels and have been engaging in street corner unlicensed taxi type
transportation for decades.

Except when they do it, it's often a criminal offense. The drivers are
ticketed or even arrested, the people who rent out rooms on a nightly basis
are evicted or charged with municipal violations.

They are primarily poorer and blacker. Then well financed tech companies come
along and do the exact same thing -- literally -- and instead of being seen as
a civic nuisance at worst or a sign of a severely crippled local economy at
best, it's called "sharing" and "fun" and hailed as the next big thing.

------
cube_yellow
If your marginal freetime is worth less than driving for Lyft, then it
probably was before Lyft.

Either own the code and machines that these services run on, or prepare for
either A) Basic income, leading towards crime and social isolation and the end
of civilization for your class, or B) Slavery (WPA style), in order to prevent
A. If you use your power of selective history the right way, you'll get B and
enjoy it.

I, as someone of non-genius IQ, will use my still-existent income to enjoy the
metaverse and avoid major cities.

------
joelrunyon
What's with all the hit pieces on the sharing economy as of late?

There's another piece on the front page here too -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7651968](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7651968)

I'm struggling to figure out what the big problem is with more people becoming
entrepreneurs?

~~~
abalone
Ok come on. You can at least comprehend the thesis of the piece.
"Entrepreneur" drivers have poor job security. Is this a fundamentally better
model for the middle class than being an Avon salesperson? That is a totally
legit issues to discuss.

This may be a perfectly good short-term way to earn some cash, but the article
is about the bigger picture for our economy. Don't pretend to not understand
when you're really just tuning it out.

~~~
joelrunyon
>"Entrepreneur" drivers have poor job security

That's true of entrepreneurs in general. I think most of the people doing that
would rather have "poor job security" than "no job security" (or the
alternative of simply no job) - which is the case for almost all workers
without specific special skills.

> Is this a fundamentally better model for the middle class than being an Avon
> salesperson?

Comparing it to MLM who's business model is dependent on replicating itself is
a completely different use case than what this is.

~~~
abalone
There is a bigger point that the article tries to call our attention to. If
the choice is between "poor" job security and "no" job security, that is a
pretty terrible choice. It does not blame Lyft et al directly. It asks us to
consider the broader implications for our economy, and if anything, whether
the "sharing economy" is truly its savior. That is the analogy with Avon et al
for the previous generation (not the precise business model).

