
'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom - cinquemb
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-gig-economy-is-the-new-term-for-serfdom/
======
reading-at-work
"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 obscene
wealth. 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 article is just individual anecdotes mixed in with rants taken straight
out of a socialist recruitment pamphlet. I'm open to different political
opinions, but this is just ridiculous. Can anyone really take this seriously?

Additionally, I'm not convinced that regulating Uber and Lyft as heavily as we
regulate taxi companies is a good idea. Taxis are a very entrenched industry
buried in red tape, which is part of why they were so expensive and
inconvenient. Uber and Lyft have been so successful because there was a
desperate need for a ride-hailing solution that didn't suck.

~~~
jumbopapa
I agree. The whole article is basically saying that it's unfair that they have
competition now. Sure, cab drivers may not be making as good of a living as
before, but in general everyone else has gained a lot in regards to lower
fares.

~~~
zdw
Seeing as every Uber and Lyft ride was (and still is?) subsidized by investor
money, Cab vs App was never a fair competition.

Replacing one problematic system with another that rearranges and changes what
the problems are isn't always a net win.

Assuming that any capitalist enterprise's goals will align with and optimize
for the long term general health of society is frankly ludicrous.

~~~
reading-at-work
Investment dollars aside, there's hard data to show that Uber and Lyft reduce
drunk driving in any area where they operate, for one thing. It's a tangible
addition to the general consensus that the apps are much better from a user
experience perspective.

Additionally, plenty of expanding companies are subsidized by investor money.
You could say the same of Netflix and, until recently, Amazon. The point is
that investors see potential for them to become more profitable down the road
- the same is true of Uber and Lyft.

Of course, you're right that Uber and Lyft are not run by saints and they will
have their own problems. But so far I see it as a net gain over the old taxi
system.

~~~
jonhendry18
"there's hard data to show that Uber and Lyft reduce drunk driving in any area
where they operate"

More cabs would likely do the same.

~~~
reading-at-work
Maybe, maybe not. What's the big difference between cabs and Uber? Price and
convenience. Uber and Lyft are successful because they fill a huge need in the
market that the overregulated taxi industry couldn't (or wouldn't). If there's
clearly a need for more cabs, and the answer is just to add more cabs, why do
you think nobody addressed that concern?

------
gambiting
I was mostly agreeing with the article until this part:

"His medallion, once worth $1.1 million, had plummeted in value to $180,000.
The dramatic drop in the value of the medallion, which he had hoped to lease
for $3,000 a month or sell to finance his retirement, wiped out his economic
security. He faced financial ruin and poverty. And he was not alone."

The medalions are stupid and shouldn't exist. 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, perhaps doing a less stressful job than
driving a taxi for 12 hours in turns with your wife? It sounds like he gambled
- that he could keep working, keep the medallion, and retire while leasing the
medallion for $3000/month(!!!!!!!!!!) - and like all gambles, this one had a
possibility of failing - and it did.

~~~
refurb
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 well, I'm not going to try to enforce the medallion system
any more."

That sucks.

~~~
huffmsa
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 labored under the delusion that massive
government contracts underwriting their $100m launch prices keep them safe.
But their bubble is popping one $60m Falcon 9 launch at a time.

And finally, the government will support whatever brings in the most taxes and
f̶r̶e̶e̶ ̶s̶p̶e̶c̶i̶a̶l̶-̶i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶e̶s̶t̶ lobbyist dinners.

~~~
cptskippy
> USPS benefited from national mail logistics only being available to
> government level endeavors.

What Kool-Aid are you drinking? The Post Office didn't benefit from anything,
it was mandated because no such service yet existed.

Prior to the Office of the Postmaster General being established, postal
service was disjointed and limited at best in the colonies. In the 1600s you
had 2 routes in the colonies, Boston to England and Boston to New York City.
It was prohibitively expensive and limited largely to business and government
communications. In the 1700s the Imperial Postal Service was extended to the
colonies with fixed rates and taxes included, and it was incredibly
unreliable.

The Post Office was born out of frustration, one of the founding fathers ran a
news paper and the Imperial Post couldn't even deliver papers reliably. The
Post Office was mandated by the founding fathers under the principle that
everyone has the right to secure, efficient, reliable, and affordable mail
service.

With the advent of the Interstate Highway System and many other technological
advances over the prevailing 200 years, the Post Office was actually able to
reduce costs and turn a profit.

During the civil rights movements of the 50s and 60s, the postal workers began
protesting and striking because work conditions and compensation. They
eventually won the right to unionized. In response to unionization the Postal
Reorganization Act (PRA) of 1970 abolished the Post Office Department and
turned the Post Office into an independent agency that was excluded from the
US Budget.

One could argue that the PRA was the start of union busting tactics employed
by the conservative government in power to bankrupt the post office. It
doesn't help that every conservative government since then has enacted some
sort of constraint upon the USPS that isn't mandated on private services. The
most recent being the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 which
required the USPS to switch from a Pay-As-You-Go to a Pre-Funded model for
it's retirement plans. That's akin to your mortgage company calling you up and
saying you'll need to pay off 100% of your principal next year.

~~~
marcoperaza
> _The Post Office was mandated by the founding fathers under the principle
> that everyone has the right to secure, efficient, reliable, and affordable
> mail service._

The founders would not have talked about postal service as a "right". A good
idea? Yes. Stupid to not have one? Yes. A right? No.

> _The most recent being the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006
> which required the USPS to switch from a Pay-As-You-Go to a Pre-Funded model
> for it 's retirement plans._

Congress saw the writing on the wall—that the Postal Service was probably
going to suffer permanently declining revenue in the long run. They took steps
to make sure that the financial burden of paying for unfunded pension
liabilities did not fall on the taxpayers.

~~~
Bartweiss
> _They took steps_

Sure, but not the steps you'd take if you wanted a functioning public postal
system. They set an extremely short timeframe to fund the pension account,
then cut postage prices right as it neared full funding.

A lot of Congress very openly wants to end the public postal system. Pre-
funding the pension system was a reasonable move in principle, but like most
changes to the USPS it's structured in a way designed to create a failing
system to privatize.

------
throwaaawayNNV
I run a business where I hire remote people to do fairly basic tasks. I can
pay them cheaply, replace them easily when they don't fit anymore. I am the
"platform" and I extract the surplus.

So I feel the article has very valid points... and I am on the "ruling
capitalists" side of my little world.

In order to sleep at night, I am just trying not to be an asshole, and to be
decent in the way I pay and behave. But as a society, we cannot rely just on
goodwill.

In the age of globalization, and as a firm believer in the efficiency of
market economy and capitalism, I think it is still time to reintroduce a new
sort of new, rebranded "International Socialism" where "workers/people of the
world, unite!" for everyone's good.

The goal would be that people can have access to enough food, decent
accommodation, healthcare, and retirement, so that on top of this base, we can
use the efficiency of a globalized market economy.

Not sure where to start...

~~~
avoutthere
If your workers are doing "fairly basic tasks", why should you be forced to
pay them more than their work is worth?

~~~
bbddg
He doesn't pay them how much their work is worth. He pays less, that's how he
makes money.

~~~
throwaaawayNNV
Exactly. I make most of the money, not them. And the day I reduce their hours
significantly because I bring AI into the platform -and one day I will-, I
will make even more, and they will make even less.

I don't think I am individually wrong to pay market rate for their work, and
keep the surplus, but the bigger question is, while nobody is wrong, including
AI, where are we going as a society? What will be the consequences?

~~~
deft
Look at history. One day people will have had enough and they're going to go
after you and people like you.

~~~
throwaaawayNNV
That's very possible. The hard question is "then what?"

If you remove the market economy and ability for people to make money, take
initiative and be rewarded for it, and go instead to a pure socialist
model/goal, that goes so much against so many human instincts, that it will be
hard to have people buying into it. As history shows. And it won't remove AI.

What new system do we propose, or how do we modify the current one, in a
globalized, AI-powered world?

~~~
deft
Well, considering socialist thought has always relied on automation getting
rid of menial, dangerous and other similar jobs, probably socialism. There are
many schools of thought for how a market can/could/would work under socialism.
Being rewarded for your effort is not outside of that. Instead of using AI to
benefit the people at the top (apparently you), an equitable system where AI
actually helps humanity as a whole would be required.

------
iliketosleep
The underlying issue is that these VC backed companies break the law to gain a
business advantage and face no real consequences, especially if they are
successful. But if individuals and small companies attempt to break these very
same laws they get crushed.

It's almost as though if you've been to Stanford and are backed by well-
connected VC's, you're able to recklessly break the law in the name of
"disruptive" technology. But I wouldn't place the blame on these people. It's
the whole system, which appears to be getting exponentially more rotten as
each day passes.

~~~
amelius
> The underlying issue is that these VC backed companies break the law to gain
> a business advantage and face no real consequences

You don't even need to break the law to gain a business advantage. Just making
a large pile of money can be sufficient to start dominating a market.

Take for example Uber-eats. Small restaurant owners suddenly had to give up
control over their sales channel to a big player, and are now forced to pay a
large monthly fee just to stay in business, where the benefits don't outweigh
the costs.

~~~
gringoDan
Restaurants don't pay a large up-front cost to be on these food delivery
services. All of the services make money by taking a percentage of the revenue
(generally 15-30%) from the orders they fulfill.

As long as the revenue from delivery exceeds the food cost (marginal cost of
preparing an order) it is beneficial for restaurants to be on AS MANY of these
delivery services as possible. This is why you'll walk into some places and
see 5 iPads next to the register - they're working with not only UberEats, but
DoorDash, Eat24, Postmates, GrubHub, etc.

I do have _many_ issues with these food delivery services, but the restaurants
aren't getting the short end of the stick here - the drivers are.

~~~
thisisit
> but the restaurants aren't getting the short end of the stick here - the
> drivers are.

Exactly. Drivers are getting the short end of the stick. Restaurants are
affected but given the exposure they get, it might be worth it.

------
jillesvangurp
How can you write an article like this without bringing up self driving cars?
The end game for Uber is to get drivers out of the loop completely. So, this
is just a temporary problem. It's going to get a whole lot worse if your plan
in life is to drive vehicles around to make money.

This is not about the gig economy but simply about a lot of jobs becoming
commodities before being automated away completely. Anyone with decent
navigation solution in their car can compete with whatever awesome skills this
medallion used to represent in terms of geographical knowledge. It's an
outdated concept that dates back to the days that actually taxis were horse &
carriage and it was kind of helpful to have some guarantees that the driver
knew where to go. Not a thing any more.

~~~
Lavery
People constantly cite self-driving cars as Uber's salvation, but never really
seem to think through the implication. Hypothetically, let's say that self-
driving cars are invented next year. Necessarily, these will start in high-end
vehicles (as nearly all new car features do) before getting rolled out to the
broader ecosystem. Now if you're Uber you face one of two choices:

1) You enter into perhaps the most capital-intensive business of all time and
buy a fleet of these new self-driving cars. This would be a humongous cash
raise; NYC alone would likely need $1B in vehicles to match current coverage
levels. You'd also need service and maintenance facilities (or pay for someone
else to handle it)

2) You wait for enough of these vehicles to be bought by consumers to create a
ride share network akin to the current one, except without the drivers

Option 1 is likely a non-starter. Uber-style businesses are popular with
investors precisely because they avoid this business model. Buying the
vehicles and facilities to maintain current US coverage would probably run
$100B or more. That's not really feasible.

Option 2 saves Uber from that awful capital raise, but means they're waiting
for self-driving cars to reach high enough saturation within the broader
vehicle fleet that they can use as rideshares during owners idle periods.
Based on what Google suggests for a typical car upgrade cycle, this would be 5
years or more. It also probably doesn't improve their margins enormously,
because they're still licensing the car from an owner who will demand a cut of
fares (whether it be directly or as an hourly lease fee). The assumption is
that fee is materially lower than what drivers want for their car and time,
but there's no reason to believe that's true (especially given, as many
studies have suggested, drivers in most markets currently lose money on a per-
mile basis). During the initial period of self-driving adoption, owners fees
will be higher, as there are fewer of these vehicles available and owners will
have better bargaining power via their scarcity.

But while Uber waits for adoption in scenario 2, their first-mover advantage
in rideshare erodes. If you're GM or Mercedes, this looks like a pretty high-
margin business, and it looks really tempting to use the self-driving tech
you're already putting into these vehicles to spin-up a competitor, and right
now there's nothing on the books saying you can't simply lock Uber out of it.

Long-term, that's my expectation: that self-driving cars will exist and Uber
will die to competition from OEMs (or some kind of alliance between OEMs and
Waymo).

[e]fixed some formatting.

~~~
anonetal
Regarding (1), they could just lease the cars from the car manufacturers. As I
recall, that was one of the reasons why GE invested so heavily in Lyft.

~~~
smileysteve
*GM

------
vinceguidry
In 1575 the Danish king gave Tycho Brahe an island and funding for an
observatory in order to keep him in Denmark. This transformed the land from a
Crown property to a feudal domain, of which Brahe was the lord.

Tycho took control of agricultural planning, requiring the peasants to
cultivate twice as much as they had done before, and he also exacted corvée
labor from the peasants for the construction of his new castle. The peasants
complained about Brahe's excessive taxation and took him to court. The court
established Tycho's right to levy taxes and labor, and the result was a
contract detailing the mutual obligations of lord and peasants on the island.
_Source Wikipedia_

Serfs have rights under the law. Gig workers have none. The only thing they
can do in order to earn rights is to sue to be treated as an employee.

The article gets it wrong. Traditional employment is an evolution on the
master-serf relationship. Gig employment is lower status, akin to wandering
laborers with no land or family. Gig workers wish they could be serfs.

~~~
scarecrowbob
I could be wrong, but insofar as wage labor is an evolution of serfdom, it
seems to press farther away from the care that the owning classes have to
invest in "their" workforce.

That is, wage labor is a way of moving the conditions of reproducing labor
onto the laborers themselves, and the gig economy is just another step in that
same process.

I have only a base understanding of the history and a very inconsistent and
loose mode of thinking about it, so I'd be stoked to get some better picture
of the mechanisms.

As I understand it, serfs have rights, and in addition the feudal system
itself (the owning class) had to value the reproduction of labor as part of
the work. So, in order to extract value from serfs, you have to feed and care
for them, or at least take that care into calculations as part of production.

Under the conditions of early capitalism the domestic labor that goes into
reproducing labor is pushed from the system into the individual families, so
once we have wage labor things like "feeding the workers" and "caring for
children" is the responsibility of labor and no longer a concern of the people
who are employing that labor.

Thus a "gig economy" is just the next iteration of the same process of
externalizing as much of the process of doing work to the laborers. The end
goal is to have the laborer take all the responsibility for production and the
owners have no investment, only pure exploitive profit, and the gig economy is
an advancement of a wage economy, which is an advancement of a serf economy,
which is itself an advancement over slavery.

I write "advancement", but I only mean that from the point of view of the
extracting/ owning class: if "slavery" means racist chattel slavery then
that's truly a horror without end; if enslavement just means that you're
working for a specific household which you're integrated within and you don't
have a free hand in just up and moving to another household (as it seems to
operate outside of capitalism) then the gig economy seems far more exploitive
than slavery as practiced in pre-capitalist civilizations.

But like I say, I don't have a great understanding, and I'd be interested to
hear where I'm wrong in terms of history or logic.

~~~
vinceguidry
Feudalism was an evolution of the old "agrarian empire" concept. Technologies
to easily transport large quantities of goods were still hundreds of years
away. So your kingdom could only get as big as the economics of transport
allowed. You could gain political control over a distant land and exact
tribute, but you had to visit the area regularly with your imperial army or
they'd stop.

Ruling classes were limited in just how much they could take from the
surrounding areas. Localities developed cultures and social institutions like
English common law, and the ruling classes universally realized that it was
more useful to work within those traditions than it was to impose your own on
them. Where they conflicted, religious authorities were there to mediate
disputes. Out of this reality, feudalism arose and developed for hundreds of
years. Local people didn't have the means or inclination to do foreign policy
or state building, for the most part. Lords were the necessary evil they
accepted so that they could get left alone.

Naval technology changed all that and created a new merchant class. It became
economical to move large quantities of goods over water and the people that
did that quickly became rich. The original merchants were royally chartered,
but there soon was enough of a manufacturing base in naval tech that anyone
could start speculating in commodities.

Thus began colonialism. The old land lords lost power and prestige to the new
merchants and slavery, which had been gone in Europe since the Roman Empire
fell, started to serve the new colonial masters, who were far away from the
old systems of social control, church and state. Wealth became liquid in a way
that it never had been before.

It wasn't so much the forced work that was the problem, but the transportation
away from home communities and the treatment of people as commodities. Britain
proper long abhored the slave trade even as British citizens participated in
it. International law had to be wrapped around the seas, and the British
slowly brought a stop to the slave trade, at great expense. Slavery in her
former colony took a civil war to end.

Forced labor can make individuals rich and powerful, but it's free people and
institutions and the deals they make and the social contract that provide for
the advancement of nations. Slavery was an existing part of the social
contract under the Romans, then it didn't make sense anymore, until technology
made it possible to bring it under the yoke of individuals.

As a nation, we're slowly coming to terms with the need for new social
contracts to provide for the common welfare. Gig work allows individuals to be
economically useful that wouldn't otherwise be, but is very close to the
bottom of that barrel. Americans haven't come around to acceptance of the
European welfare state, and it probably never will if you ask me. Gig workers
will be left to their own devices and are the beginning of a new underclass.
They're not quite slaves, not quite serfs, and lack the means to improve their
lot. Like serfs, though, they will create their own internal rules and morals
and institutions, and the business world will adapt around them.

~~~
scarecrowbob
Thank you for the brief history.

I'm in the middle of reading "Caliban and the Witch" and it's nice to have
additional ideas about the motion from feudalism to the newer systems.

~~~
vinceguidry
Looking that book up reminded me of an easy-to-read history with a strong
focus on women, taking us from the 19th century to after WW2.

[https://www.amazon.com/Servants-Downstairs-History-
Britain-N...](https://www.amazon.com/Servants-Downstairs-History-Britain-
Nineteenth/dp/0393349802)

~~~
scarecrowbob
Thank you; I'll take a look.

------
zackkatz
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 Central Park. And now
> no one can go anywhere because there are now 100,000 horses in Central Park.
> It would be considered madness to do that. They wouldn’t do it. Yet when it
> comes to the yellow cab industry, for 50 years all we could have was 13,000
> cabs, and then within a year or two we’re going to add 100,000. Let’s see
> how the market works on that! We know how the market works.”

~~~
reading-at-work
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 skirted the regulations,
they were able to provide a much better user experience.

We need to take a look at which regulations are actually helpful and which are
expensive and unnecessary.

~~~
wmeredith
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.

~~~
reading-at-work
Even if cabs and Uber rides were the same price, I'd still prefer Uber.
Wouldn't you?

That said, I doubt the VC money will dry up. Companies can operate in the red,
sustained by VC money, for a long time before becoming profitable. Look at
Netflix, for example. Or Amazon until recently.

------
WhompingWindows
Serfdom is not a good comparison. Serfs were essentially slaves required to
work the land, they did not choose to do so at hours that suited them, which
is a key "feature" of the gig economy. They also were required to work mines,
logging, or whatever service the lord of the manor wished.

Let's say you worked for ride-shaes the same hours as a serf, something like
sunrise to sunset. If you drove an Uber in my city for that long, you'd
probably make at least $100 pre-tax, and your overall income would be enough
to support yourself in a far higher quality of life than even the greatest
kings who ruled over the serfs.

~~~
maxxxxx
Do you realize how obnoxiously condescending the line "look how good you have
it over the people a few hundred years ago" is? How about we give that line to
people who already have a lot but always want more? No, it's only used against
the little guy who dares to want a decent life.

~~~
WhompingWindows
kdamken nails it. I'm responding to the author's hyperbolic use of the word
serfdom, which carries with it an actual historical set of facts. Do I agree
with the current distribution of income/wealth in the economy? No, in another
thread I'm speaking about the low chances of companies using cash to hire new
people, vs. paying off CEOs or stockholders. Yet, to compare Uber or Lyft
workers to serfs is not historically valid.

------
shusson
> Travis Kalanick, the former CEO of Uber and one of the founders, has a net
> worth of $4.8 billion.

I agree that the working conditions of workers should improve but I never
understand the comparison to the value of CEOs. Travis Kalanick isn't sleeping
on $4.8 billion, it's in the economy.

~~~
WhompingWindows
Is it though, or is it in stocks? And even if he cashed in on that 4.8 bln,
what would he do with it? Surely not put it all as a bolus into the economy,
no CEO does that, they'd place their funds into bonds or other stocks. He will
likely still buy 1 pair of jeans, 2 pillows, and 1 ice cream like the rest of
us. The true way to put that 4.8 billion into the economy is to give the
consumers, the drivers and riders themselves, the best bottom line. Then each
of them in turn can buy that one more product, far more spending than a CEO is
likely to do.

~~~
Agebor
Then the value just diffuses in the whole economy, ending up in investments in
countless industries.

Instead you can keep it in stocks of companies you believe in, like startups
and interesting moonshots.

It all ends up with the question - do you want the economy to decide where to
focus the value (the diffusion) or do you want to decide yourself?

But if you have this amount of money in the first place, you are statistically
in the better place to decide than the economy.

~~~
bbddg
I think you need a citation for that last point. This is the exact logic that
got us the 2008 crash.

~~~
Agebor
Perhaps, but also most of technological progress in recent centuries. It's a
shame humans have a bias for negativity.

~~~
bbddg
Certainly lots of technological progress has been made through exploitation
but as we see automation taking more and more jobs, maybe we can end that
cycle.

This is how progress in society is made. See a problem in the world and try to
make it better. I don't think we need to have people working such degrading
jobs to have technological progress, but you need it to have this many
billionaires running around.

------
DoreenMichele
It does not have to be this way. Gig work allowed me access to earned income
under circumstances where a regular job would have been impossible. It helped
empower me to start solving what should have been unsolvable problems.

HN is a gathering place for people who start businesses. Yes, we need a remedy
for the current abuses. But whatever Uber or Lyft or other existing companies
are doing, you can be the architect of a better future by starting a company
and not being a greedy bastard who feels they need billions while entry level
employees don't make enough to support themselves.

The other thing that would help would be if we developed some guidelines for
gig work done right.

Another thing that could help would be advocacy groups or informational
sources.

I do my part by blogging about gig work that has the potential to become a
middle class income and promoting businesses that do this well and are not
tyrant overlords. It's a small thing and I don't have much reach. But we can
choose to foster the success of gig businesses that treat workers well instead
of merely labeling gig work the new serfdom and essentially assuming it cannot
be otherwise.

Given my positive experience of gig work, I hate seeing the issue framed this
way. I feel it throws the baby out with the bath water.

------
vinniejames
I mostly agree with the sentiment of the article. However, it's a shame for
its entire focus to be on the cab industry. Driverless cars are coming, and
coming soon, those cab driver hours could likely be cut to zero.
Unfortunately, the economy changes and people need to adapt. The horse shoeing
industry took the same toll when then car was invented.

That's not to say the article doesn't have merit. There are a ton of other
industries ripe for disruption by the gig economy. Platform providers need to
think deeply about how this could affect the lives of those relying on them
for work. Hopefully, going so far as to ensure a decent live wage, and
plausible options for health and other benefits.

The internet was partially built to facilitate these types of working
relationships. It is up to us to define how these relationships should play
out in practice, to ensure everyone involved is able to live an acceptable
quality of life.

------
BenoitEssiambre
No this is not specific to the "gig" economy. Too much concentration of
ownership in any kind of business is serfdom for non owners.

~~~
CaptainZapp
The difference being that when you work in a sallaried position you can rely
on a certain economic baseline.

You can expect a regular salary and defined benefits.

The gig economy very much uppends those facts massively and gig economy can be
profitable because they externalise the real costs.

To summarize: I don't disagree that too miuch concentrated ownership is a bad
thing, but disagree with your conclusion that it's not specific to the gig
economy.

------
adrianN
> His medallion, once worth $1.1 million

Wow. Why not sell the medallion immediately and retire to some place with low
cost of living instead of working 12 hour night shifts and never seeing your
spouse because she works the day shift?

~~~
pjc50
Because the medallion was a capital asset he was working to produce income, in
the same manner as some people own trucks of about that value?

~~~
gambiting
I can only assume he didn't buy it for 1.1 million dollars. If you bought a
truck for say $100k, but after few years its value rose to $1.1M, I'd also
recommend selling the truck instead of relying on the idea that the truck will
retain its value and support retirement.

~~~
carlmr
He probably bought it on a huge loan for 1 million, and you can't just retire
on the difference.

~~~
gambiting
I don't see information in the article about how much he paid for it - but if
he's been a driver for long I doubt that he paid anywhere near that much.

------
ptero
Most taxi drivers must work _very_ long hours to earn enough to live on -- the
driver mentioned reportedly worked 100-120 hour weeks for 14 years. While it
may be OK to do this for a short time, doing this as a lifestyle is not good
for a society not at war.

Such jobs should be replaced by technology / gigs / something else. Being
displaced by the technology is painful for the folks affected, but we should
focus on minimizing transition pain for those affected (money, training,
relocation, other help), not on blasting companies challenging this insanity.

~~~
Zak
Taxis are going to be replaced by robots within the lifetimes of most people
reading this. I think it's been clear for a while that owning a large segment
of that market is Uber's end game.

Under the classic hacker ethic, this is a good thing; humans shouldn't be
forced to perform menial tasks. Of course, people currently performing those
tasks for a living might not appreciate that. In the long term, however I
think the safety advantage will be compelling.

~~~
Cthulhu_
We'll die from starvation and exposure because we can't afford a home anymore,
but at least we reduced traffic deaths and generated a lot of money for our
shareholders in the process ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
Zak
Paul Graham wrote on HN a few years back something to the effect of "never in
history has making the consumption of a resource more efficient resulted in
less demand for it over the long term".

With regard to human labor in particular, people have said of nearly every
major breakthrough in mechanization or automation that it would destroy all
the jobs, and every time, it has done no such thing. There are people saying
"this time is different", but heuristically speaking, betting against a long
historical track record is probably not a good bet.

------
thedoops
The gig economy has barely begun. It won't be in full force till I can see
quest/gig markers in mixed reality. Ironically I think to implement a gig
economy to this extent we'll have solved the problem of merit to the point
money is much less influential. It could very well reverse the tide of
egregious wealth inequality. The challenge is to build systems which can
securely aggregate data on a person's subject matter expertise. The better we
can estimate categorical competence the better we can make opportunities
visible.

------
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

------
JulianMorrison
If we get a universal basic income set equal to a living wage, then the "gig
economy" can go back to being actual gigs, that is, people doing a bit extra
to get a bit extra.

~~~
sokoloff
What's a living wage? $30K/yr?

How many Americans are there (or just American adults)? 325M / 250M

What's those two figures multiplied together? 9.8T / 7.5T

What's the total federal tax revenues in 2016? 3.5T

To what multiple would we need to raise taxes to pay for such a program? Raise
to 3.8x current taxation levels / raise to 3.1x current taxation levels.

All that assumes that basic prices wouldn't rise in an environment where money
metaphorically fell like manna. (That $30K would have the same purchasing
power as it does today, which seems _unlikely_.)

Adjust the assumptions as you like; IMO, there's no mathematically viable
solution to a "living wage before the first hour of work".

~~~
Sileni
Adjust down to 10k-15k; the wage doesn't have to be livable in a single apt
with no partners, but it should be enough that you can split out living
expenses in a cheap midwestern city with 2-3 roommates. Welcome side effect,
we spread people and wealth more evenly across the country in a small way.
People are encouraged to find the cheapest possible living arrangements, which
will include developing currently unwanted land.

Recognize that most people are going to be put off from the bare minimum
arrangement, and that you don't have to pay people making above some arbitrary
line, something like 6-7x the UBI.

Many of the social programs currently running could be shut down with UBI.

And all of these are based on the assumption that automation will continue to
increase efficiency. Right now, it would be nearly impossible, especially with
the legislation that exists. It's dependent on taxing the owners of businesses
with high automation, recognizing that we're not far out from some truly
massive automated systems, the most immediate being logistics and transport.

~~~
sokoloff
> Adjust down to 10k-15k; the wage doesn't have to be livable in a single apt
> with no partners,

I agree with you (and would support an even lower UBI if it meant it had a
chance for the math to work out). The "fight for $15" people probably
disagree, though.

------
jsemrau
I am still waiting for an update on Coupland's "Microserfs" for this
generation.

------
douglaswlance
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.

~~~
maxxxxx
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.

~~~
douglaswlance
I did it. You can too.

We can all be solo business owners.

------
Micrococonut
Maybe people should increase their human capital by perhaps developing some
sort of valuable skill. The fact is their skills are practically worthless
because almost every adult can do what they do. Instead of crying that their
so-easy-a-caveman-could-do-it job driving a car isn't making them enough
money, they should do something else that generates more value and thus pays
them more.

------
tootie
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.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
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.

------
stillsut
Uber is losing $1B of shareholder capital every quarter to subsidize driver
wages above rider revenue. A tax on capital, distributed to labor, no?

------
thisisit
IMO, isn't "The Gig Economy" the new term for "Temp Jobs" instead?

~~~
Cthulhu_
In a way, but with even less job guarantees; temp jobs (as far as I remember
them from summer jobs) were full days at least, often even full seasons if you
wanted it. Gig economy is entirely dependent on demand for e.g. rides, and pay
is not based on an hourly rate but on however much competition you have at any
given time. Also temp jobs give worker rights, insurances, health and safety
regulations, etc; gig economy does not, risks are entirely for the driver.

I mean what does Uber etc do when a driver gets into an accident during a
ride? Outside of a ride? If it was a taxi company, insurance would kick in and
there'd be no problem. In the gig economy, the risk is entirely for the
driver.

------
em3rgent0rdr
Had uBlock off, and saw an AD for Lyft in this article. :D

------
aurelien
The Pet economy have already started ;-)

~~~
cableshaft
Pet economy? Maybe it's time to investigate being a Pet Detective again. Might
need to rewatch the training videos.

------
madengr
Pretty much stopped reading when I got to “hedonism and greed” part. Plenty of
other communist rants to read. Is this an article or editorial?

The people currently driving for Uber/Lyft will be in the same boat when
automation comes. Driving a car requires a pulse and peripheral vision. It’s
ripe for a race to the bottom.

