
The future of work: There’s an app for that - wallflower
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21637355-freelance-workers-available-moments-notice-will-reshape-nature-companies-and
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vegabook
Yet again we have the interests of macroeconomics clashing with the interests
of communities.

This makes perfect economic sense. You're a business, if things go poorly you
scale down cost-free, if they go better, scale up at slightly higher cost than
fixed, but the flex is more than worth it. After all, with this you protect
margins in all scenarios. Perfect no? In this sense, it mirrors cloud compute
instances. Lower capital investment, granular scalability (in this case of
human resource rather than compute resource).

Except that it reminds me of an old adage of finance: you cannot eliminate
risk - you can only transfer it. This is a classic example of risk
transferral: from capital to labour. It makes tons of sense for a business. It
makes much less sense for the employees, who, atomised commodities, have no
bargaining power. This is, by extension, a bad idea for society, if you accept
that groupings of individuals, including those defined by today's
"corporations" exist precisely to reduce risk for each individual. That is the
implicit exchange between employee and employer. I will provide you with the
opportunity to profit from my labour; you will provide me with security. This
breaks that contract.

To those who will argue that it is good for aggregate growth, I say, trickle
down is not happening. Eliminate the trickle down argument and you're left
with a bad proposition.//

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asr
_That is the implicit exchange between employee and employer. I will provide
you with the opportunity to profit from my labour; you will provide me with
security._

Interesting, but I can't say I agree. Some jobs are compensated in risky,
performance-based ways already (e.g. sales). And conversely, if everyone
prefers job security, freelancing websites could attract better-quality
workers by becoming more like employers.

There are a number of other theories for why firms exist, but the classic
explanation is that it reduces transaction costs if you can bug Jill down the
hall for 10 minutes of her time instead of hiring an outside contractor.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm)

~~~
amirmc
Even most sales jobs come with a _base_ salary. You might still be fired for
not hitting targets but if you happen to have a bad run, you're not destitute.

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Futurebot
Another article on the topic from The Economist (lead article from the latest
issue) that is worth reading:

[http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21637393-rise-
demand-e...](http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21637393-rise-demand-
economy-poses-difficult-questions-workers-companies-and)

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wahsd
Although I am quite interested in this space, I feel like this has already
been attempted on several occasions.

Maybe it's a bit different, but I think there are significant issues with
these models related to the risks to IP and also work cohesiveness.

~~~
abandonliberty
I agree, I don't think this will target job markets that have significant IP
concerns or teamwork, culture, and ramp-up requirements.

It is a good way to go after trade/unskilled labour.

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ivankolev
the company name seemed vaguely familiar, and then I remembered to check my
Pocket reading queue: [http://thebillfold.com/2014/10/my-day-interviewing-for-
the-s...](http://thebillfold.com/2014/10/my-day-interviewing-for-the-service-
economy-startup-from-hell/)

~~~
dalacv
What a great article / story. I could not stop reading. Very well written and
entertaining.

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raincom
All these innovations are useful, when we don't need to slave away 40% of time
to pay rents.

