
Worker-Owned Apps Are Trying to Fix the Gig Economy - rmbryan
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pa75a8/worker-owned-apps-are-trying-to-fix-the-gig-economys-exploitation
======
say_it_as_it_is
Don't forget what happened to Walnut when it priced its moving services for
fairness and equity: [https://medium.com/@nickbkim/why-were-closing-
walnut-a452225...](https://medium.com/@nickbkim/why-were-closing-
walnut-a452225e7127)

Everyone wants fairness and equity until the time comes for each to pay for
it.

I'm saying this in a disappointed tone as I really would like platform
cooperatives to work but they're going to fail to compete in a relatively open
market of a capitalist society. Also, everyone working in IT for these
platforms becomes the exploited. It's inverted exploitation. Programmer:
you're being paid less than what you'd make in a free market. If you're not
getting your flat cleaned twice a week as a member of this cooperative, you're
doing it wrong. You, my friend, are being taken to the proverbial cleaners.

~~~
antonkm
There's more to life then money. Being able to provide others with a fair and
better platform would make me accept a paycut.

~~~
say_it_as_it_is
It's easy to give up what you don't have. A web dev in Sweden has a social
safety net to maintain a quality of life that is unobtainable in the U.S.
without earning as much as possible. It is never at someone else's loss but at
the discretion of managers based on the value each gives to the organization.

~~~
antonkm
I'm sorry, I don't really follow your comment.

> It is never at someone else's loss but at the discretion of managers based
> on the value each gives to the organization

Can you expand on this?

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jasonlfunk
Despite the loaded exploitation rhetoric in the article, if competitors can
come into the market that is better for the workers, that’s great. And if it
raises the standards for the privately owned apps, that’s even better. This
seems like a win all around.

~~~
ptah
what if it makes it impossible for the "privately owned" apps to compete and
wipes them out completely?

~~~
danShumway
Let me rephrase that question in terms of software -- what happens if someone
develops an Open Source product that works better than the proprietary
alternative, and the proprietary alternatives get wiped out entirely?

The short answer is that for-profit, privatized entities should not be
privileged in competition. Community owned solutions, non-profit solutions,
naturally occurring public alternatives to products, worker-owned and
volunteer-maintained solutions, and so on -- these efforts are no less
legitimate than a traditional Capitalist solution. If they produce better
results than a VC-backed or privatized product, then they deserve to win.

In my mind, the difference between a free market and Capitalism is that a free
market is OK with Capitalists losing sometimes. It's good for businesses to
compete not only with each other, but also with forces and coalitions outside
of traditional markets.

And worker-owned businesses aren't even that radical of an idea -- they're
just a different way to manage the business and distribute profits. Open
Source and nonprofits are much farther outside of traditional Capitalist
markets than a worker-owned business is.

I'm all for efforts like this.

~~~
WalterBright
> what happens if someone develops an Open Source product that works better
> than the proprietary alternative, and the proprietary alternatives get wiped
> out entirely?

Well, we know what happens. Consider the compiler business. In the 80's,
compilers cost real money. Today, compilers are free and are far better.

Although in the 80's I once counted 30 independent C compiler vendors. Those
companies all dwindled away one by one.

------
sfifs
I'm surprised there's not more of this kind of worker co-op apps. These gig
economy apps largely cater to region specific markets - so having enough
platform scale to cover an urban agglomeration seems is good enough. If
members of a profession in a city choose to go with a specific app, the demand
tends to follow by word of mouth. Seems like there's a business model in
building white label apps for co-ops and unions on a costs plus kind of model.

~~~
save_ferris
Austin got a non-profit ridesharing app after Lyft and Uber left a few years
ago. It was pretty solid, although the mobile UX wasn't quite as good (which
was to be expected).

When Uber and Lyft came back, they artificially lowered prices by subsidizing
rides to claw business back from RideAustin, and it worked. Within a few
months, RideAustin was pretty much defunct and hard to use since drivers were
using the other apps.

Word of mouth only works when the local option is also the most lucrative. The
problem with gig apps is the company can take their VC cash and underbid the
market to weed out competition.

~~~
wffurr
Predatory pricing like that ought to be illegal.

~~~
TheMagicHorsey
I'm not worried. People will go back to RideAustin if the paid apps raise
prices. Meanwhile, I like my VC subsidized rides.

~~~
save_ferris
> People will go back to RideAustin if the paid apps raise prices.

...not if RideAustin ceases to operate.

It’s a strange day for capitalism when you’re being directly incentivized by
the ultra wealthy to make decisions that benefit them instead of the local
community. Handouts are cool as long it’s a private payer and not the
government I guess.

------
coding123
In the tutoring space markup is about $65 per hour. Tutors are often making
less than 25. I don't know if there are apps for it yet, but don't pay the
middle man.

~~~
WalterBright
Back in the 1980's when we sold compilers through the mail, we had deals with
various mail order aggregators. They'd run full page ads with lists of
software they were selling mail order, along with prices.

I was horrified that they wanted us to supply them the product for less than
half of what they were selling it for. No way, I thought, they're ripping us
off.

I was told that there was no other way. The reality of running an aggregator
business is you have to double the wholesale cost in order to turn a profit.
Most lay people terribly underestimate how much money it costs to run a
business. And it was worth it for us because the aggregator was reaching far
more customers than we could.

Don't pay the middle man is nice in theory, but the middle man exists because
they are worth the money.

~~~
deleteme3212
>the middle man exists because they are worth the money.

I strongly disagree with this statement.

Rent seekers are everywhere and it is never guaranteed that they are adding
anything of value to the system, and often they are only extracting.

~~~
WalterBright
> I strongly disagree with this statement.

That means that businessmen who use middle men are incompetent fools. While
that is impossible, it's highly unlikely.

~~~
WalterBright
Ack. I meant "possible".

------
joshuaellinger
Austin Taxi Co-op is owned by the drivers. They have a decent app and are
(slowly) working their way up to competing with Uber/Lyft. They've got the
booking side down well enough but haven't tackled payment.

It will be interesting to see how that shakes out in the next five years.

------
tathougies
On the contrary, there is no exploitation. A driver for uber (or dasher for
doordash, or whatever) is legally completely allowed to create their own app
to take their own orders. This is because they are independent contractors --
businesses, from a legal perspective, doing business with other businesses. As
such, neither uber nor doordash nor anyone else can prevent its ICs from
joining other networks (hence why many drive for lyft and uber). It would be
exploitation if these individuals were employees, which is what California has
recently forced in that state. This state-mandated exploitation is immoral and
unjust, because it precludes workers from doing things like this.

In California, now exploited employees would first have to quit their gig job
in order to join a new app that benefits them. This creates an artificial moat
around starting a new app because often times these individuals would not have
enough capital to be able to finance even short periods of unemployment and
migration to a new platform. That is really sad.

~~~
tomtheelder
There is extreme exploitation, due to independent contractors not being
afforded almost any worker protections. Each gig employer has no incentive,
legal or otherwise, to provide for their workers. In their efforts to minimize
labor costs they can employ tactics like reducing wages below minimum wage,
offering no benefits, discriminating at will, and of course offering less work
than could possibly sustain an employee. This last one is made particularly
easy because of the ability of ICs to work for many operators: the employers
know their workers will just pick up extra work on another platform, often
with a cruel total of worked hours for minimal pay.

In California, these workers will now receive some of the protections offered
to others. That is not a perfect situation or anything, but the current state
of ICs in the gig economy is _abominable_. They will be free to seek new
employment without quitting much like any other worker. Yes they wont be able
to work oppressive hours for multiple employers, none of whom are providing
for them. That is not a bad thing.

The gig economy is an unmitigated disaster. I'm not sure CA's solution is
perfect, but it's a _big_ improvement.

~~~
tathougies
Oh, you mean the protection of being forced to work for a failing employer.
Yes, so much protection /s

------
rmbryan
my question is, as a consumer, how can I find cooperative platforms as
distinct from exploitive ones?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Great question. There doesn't seem to be a platform specific concept similar
to "Certified Employee Owned" [1], but you might consider getting in touch
with Certified EO to see if they would develop one.

I too would be interested in using only non-exploitive platforms, bonus if it
cuts the legs out from underneath the traditional VC funded platforms.

[1]
[https://www.certifiedeo.com/eo/about](https://www.certifiedeo.com/eo/about)

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jacquesm
I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of app development, is it possible for
one app to detect the presence of another? If yes then it won't take long
before there will be retaliation.

~~~
severine
Seems possible: [https://sites.google.com/site/androidhowto/how-
to-1/detect-i...](https://sites.google.com/site/androidhowto/how-to-1/detect-
if-an-app-is-installed)

Anyone can explain more?

------
brenden2
It would be interesting to make a unionization app for tech workers, too.
Something like blind where you can share your salary history, insider stories,
etc, and use it for leverage when negotiating salary. The one thing I don't
like about blind is that most of the discussions are very low quality, but you
could fix that by disabling the discussion part, focusing on salary data, and
perhaps company reviews (like Glassdoor) anonymously.

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roschdal
This is a wonderful idea

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moretai
I don't get it. If there is an app that take a minimal cut, like a craigslist,
wouldn't that be better for the company in the long run than suffering the PR
disaster and distaste that will inevitably come after fucking over your sole
reason of use?

------
dsalzman
Gym owners should band together to make a cooperative owned alternative to
MindBody. It’s a disaster. Any group of companies that are hyper regional and
don’t compete should try this. Same thing with restaurants and
Opentable/Ordering Apps.

------
ilaksh
Decentralization technologies should help with efforts like this.

------
WalterBright
The great thing about free market capitalism is that people can form worker
cooperatives anytime they want.

~~~
nickpp
This pretty much sums up the entrepreneurial impact of socialism for me:

"You can be a socialist under capitalism but you can’t be a capitalist under
socialism."

~~~
BrainInAJar
"you can choose not to own slaves under slavery, but you can't choose to own
slaves without it"

------
MadWombat
I just checked Up & Go site for prices. I am sure, Handy are terrible,
exploitative, capitalist pigs, but they clean my place for about $40-50 less
than Up & Go just quoted me. I think I am going to stick with the pigs for
now.

------
cjg
Seize the means of production.

~~~
tantalor
Is it the car, or the app?

~~~
diggan
The service itself, the economic value of it. Probably would refer to the
network and it's data, and the app. The car is irrelevant. Some might get a
car provided, others might use their own. Focus is to make sure there is no
fight between owners of the service and operators/users. Put them all on the
same level (or simpler, make the operators the owners).

------
sharemywin
my question is are these platforms(I'm including UBER in this) actually
cartels? from a legal perspective? If they don't allow individuals to set
pricing.

~~~
ptah
how are they stopping individuals from setting pricing. if anything it gives
them more power than traditional gig economy apps

~~~
sharemywin
I talking about price fixing. we're multiple sellers collude to fix pricing.

Up & Go cleaners earn $25 per hour, more than double what workers typically
earned independently, according to Project Manager Sylvia Morse. While apps
generally take a cut of 20 percent or more, Up & Go only takes 5 percent,
which it then reinvests in the platform.

~~~
ptah
explain to me how that is bad? Also it is not multiple sellers. Up & go is one
entity just like Uber

~~~
sharemywin
I was more asking is it illegal?

Horizontal Price Fixing

Horizontal price fixing occurs when companies decide to fix prices or price
levels for a good or service at a premium or a discount. For example, several
retail companies may fix the sale prices of television sets at a premium
thereby earning higher profits.

[https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pricefixing.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pricefixing.asp)

~~~
ptah
these are not companies. it is one company comprising of individuals

