

In the gig economy, everyone is a hustler - quoderat
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-01-12/the-gig-economy/full/

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thesethings
I greatly respect the writer of this article (Tina Brown), however the post
left a bad taste in my mouth. I disagree that workers being independent is
disempowering (she didn't say it explicitly, but she said people were
struggling), or that it _has_ to be annoying for the businesses employing
them.

My unsubstantiated hunch is that she's writing this from a mildly older-
industry perspective, and that those businesses and workers might be
struggling more with this. I have many friends (in admittedly newer
industries) who are thriving as independents. Not just financially, but the
freedom and opportunity it gives them to travel and challenge themselves is
great. Sometimes they take well paying gigs, sometimes they work for peanuts
on crazy projects.

I guess I just disagree with the "attitude" of the article. That independence
isn't something to "settle" for, but something to strive for. She writes like
it's a result of a bad economy, but I think many kinds of work would be headed
in this direction anyway, even if the economy were sailing.

~~~
osipov
How old are your friends who are thriving as independents? The "freedom and
opportunity" are a great deal less glamorous for those in their late 40s who
are just trying to raise kids and provide for the family...

~~~
larrykubin
You mean there are people who don't like freedom and opportunity? I am doing
well working independently in my 20's, but I hope when I'm in my late 40's I
still appreciate freedom and opportunity. I would think that new opportunities
would be beneficial for me, my kids, and my family as well.

~~~
alex_c
You are implying that you appreciate the freedom and opportunity to succeed -
of course, who wouldn't!

However, I don't know if you can separate that from the freedom and
opportunity to fail (can you have good without evil?) How much are you
factoring that into your calculations for your late 40's and beyond?

~~~
jscn
Let me try and make sense of this: freedom and opportunity to succeed is good,
but entails possibility of failure, which is bad.

You're saying you don't want the freedom and opportunity to do either when in
your late 40s and beyond? Or are you saying that you want to have the
opportunity to succeed, but not to fail, when you're in your late 40s? Didn't
you just say that's not possible? I'm confused...

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alex_c
I honestly don't know how I will think in 20 years - that obviously depends on
what will happen between now and then.

What I'm trying to say is that as people get older and have a family to
support, they might get more risk averse, and begin to prefer safer options
(which likely involve less freedom and opportunity). The cost of failure then
is much higher than the cost of failure now.

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larrykubin
This article is terrible. They surveyed 500 people on the internet. Over a
hundred people said they did some consulting work, so therefore America is a
"Gigocracy". Seriously?

She makes it seem like a negative thing that people can't describe what they
do with a simple sentence. As if everyone should say Hi, I'm Joe the Plumber
or Bob the Butcher.

Then she describes the "penny-ante slog" of working three times as hard for
less money without raises. From personal experience, I'm making twice as much
money and work maybe half the amount of hours or less. When you start a new
project or gig, you decide how much money it will cost, and if it's not worth
it to you, then don't do the project. If you want a raise, then you raise your
rates.

She makes it sound like everyone finds their gigs on Mechanical Turk.

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davidw
Once again, a serious discussion of this topic would mention Coase's 'Theory
of the Firm':

<http://journal.dedasys.com/2009/01/14/the-gig-economy>

Actually, my article isn't very serious either, but it does talk about one of
the underlying reasons for the balance between contractors and others external
to the firm, and employees.

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3pt14159
Less pay? Please. If you get a good name when you start out gigs you want will
come to you and you will earn much more after expenses than you did at a
previous employer doing similar work.

Also this whole article reads like an overreaction. "Get Jim on this meeting"
- Buffoon Boss "Jim's not in today" - on top of things clerk "Lets bring in
Julie who knows nothing" etc...

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quellhorst
My experience with gigs is that if you do your job well you'll make more $ and
have more freedom.

~~~
quoderat
In my experience, I did make slightly more, but I couldn't afford health
insurance. If I had any kids, it would have been even worse.

That's why I believe that some form of nationalized health coverage will
actually lead to far more entrepreneurship as many of these concerns evaporate
-- especially for those with families to worry about.

~~~
Prrometheus
You assume that nationalizing health insurance will lower the cost without
having too large a negative effect on quality. Or, like most people who
advocate nationalized things, you assume that people above you on the income
scale will be subsidizing your consumption.

Not all of these things are necessarily true.

~~~
kragen
Nationalizing health insurance might improve quality; the quality of health
care in the US is pretty appallingly bad, compared to, say, Argentina. I hear
health care in nearly all the other OECD countries is also nationalized, lower
in cost, and higher in quality than in the US, but I only have personal
experience with health care in the US, Argentina, Canada, and the Federated
States of Micronesia (where I can assure you that health care is terrible).

Admittedly the health care we've used so far here in Argentina hasn't been the
public system, but I hear it's not that bad either.

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Dilpil
I am not certain the writer understands the concept of a hustler.

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ajkirwin
Wow. This article seems to be able to be boiled down to, "Because people are
fed up with poor pay or being overburdened in traditional 9-5 jobs, they are
trying to get more freedom and happiness. And this is just RUINING all our bad
business practices and making all these POOR MANAGERS frustrated."

