Is it really based on exploitation? Take for instance one of my best friends who lives in the D.C. area. He was just raving to me about how he made of $300 in one night driving for Uber. Now, of course he has to pay for his own gas and wear and tear on his car, but he did not feel exploited. Not saying that every "gig economy" company pays well, but I don't think you can say it is all based on exploitation. I think that it really starts out as something more innocent. The idea that there is a certain population with need A. There is another population willing to perform tasks to satisfy need A. Somebody builds a platform to bring those two together and take a slice of the pie because it looks like a really big pie. Then once it is created, they don't execute it well or find out that the people with need A don't really want to pay that much, or some other factor that leads to squeezing the people satisfying need A because the company wants to be profitable. Squeezing the people doing the work was probably not the idea from the outset, it was probably much more positively thought of as in they thought they could give people a chance to truly earn a respectable amount of money.
> Now, of course he has to pay for his own gas and wear and tear on his car, but he did not feel exploited.
Contract law is funny. In a perfect world, anybody should be able to make a contract with anybody else to perform a legal act for them. But the world isn't perfect. You have to take into account that the contract you just made might well be replicated hundreds, thousands, or millions of times, in countless different contexts.
Sex is legal. Forming a contract involving sex is not. Even if nine times out of ten, it's perfectly fine, that would generate huge social costs. It's why gambling is so controversial and tends to be relegated to a select few adult playgrounds that are set up to handle those costs.
Labor laws came into force awhile back to reduce the risks of employment. Before labor laws, if you got hurt on a job, it had the very real potential of ruining your life. Your employer would not pay for your care, you'd be fired, even if it was no fault of your own. And managers were often ruthless about coercing employees into performing dangerous tasks with no safety protocols. Labor laws protect you against yourself, no one should be exposed to some risks even if it means putting more food on the table.
But does that really apply in the case of Uber? Honest question. You are agreeing to perform a task, in this case, driving an individual from point A to point B for a set $ amount. You can see that dollar amount and decide to take it or not, correct? So, if you get injured in a car accident you are covered by your or the other driver's insurance. If this is a side job, not your full time work then you could have health insurance on top of that. So where exactly is the problem here? Now, this isn't speaking to the so called "gig economy" in general because I think that each company is responsible for its own rules and actions when it comes to labor. If one company fails to pay an honest wage and exploits its workers, that doesn't incriminate every company that creates a contract platform.
> So, if you get injured in a car accident you are covered by your or the other driver's insurance.
Not necessarily. Most car insurance companies won't cover you if you're using your vehicle commercially unless you get a commercial policy. You could be put into the position of having nobody to foot the bill in the case of an accident. The market will eventually adjust to these new kinds of insurance customers, but if the insurance companies start catering to Uber drivers, that could cause problems for them seeing as how ride-sharing is illegal in many if not most places.
So the insurance companies could be exposed to legal risk for facilitating illegal businesses, just as banks would be exposing themselves to criminal liabilities if they start catering to the marijuana industry. So they have to be careful. All increasing the risk of you getting into an accident and having no one but yourself to pay the hospital bills and getting sued by the other party or your customer for failing to carry proper insurance. The ride-sharing companies offer to shoulder the risk themselves by carrying policies, but it's unclear as to whether this is really enough.
I actually looked that up while I was writing my reply. Civil marriage law in England and Wales still has a consummation requirement, but AFAIK nowhere in the US was it ever required.
"Squeezing the people doing the work was probably not the idea from the outset"
Looking at some of the companies that are popping up, it's looking more like the case where the "contractors" are getting squeezed more and more. So yeah, in answer to your question, a lot of the gig economy is looking like exploitation.
On another note, Uber started off as a fantastic opportunity for "gig work." But a lot of Uber's latest changes are definitely exploitation.
If I spend an hour or two a week driving for Uber it seems pretty fair to consider me a contractor.
What if I spend 15 hours a week? Am I a contractor or a part time worker? What about 40 hours? Am I an employee yet?
Now let's make it worse. I drive 60 hours a week, but I drive for Uber, Lift, and a hypothetical third rid share company. Am I an Uber employee? 'No because you drive for three services.' But what if 90% of my 'gigs' come from Uber?
It can get really hard to draw that line.
And that's ignoring thins like companies paying 'temps' or 'contractors ' for years to work one hour less than full time.
The length of time you work has nothing to do with being a contractor or employee. A"temp" or "contractor" in your last sentence are typically employees of a temp agency, and not 1099 contractors. The agency covers the employee benefits, and takes those costs when consideration when negotiating the contract with the company.
Well, has he sat down and done the math on what he nets in the long run? If he feels that it's worth it in the long run, he's not being exploited, but if he sits down and does the math and he determines that driving for Uber costs him money, then yes he's being exploited.
So, the downvote signifies that someone REALLY disagrees with me? Care to elaborate the downvote? I must say that if you aren't willing to enter into a dialog on an honestly written and non flaming post I'm disappointed in your integrity and maturity, whoever you are.
@frostmathew - isn't downvoting supposed to be used to drop conversations that are trolling in nature? Not simply because you disagree with someone? Isn't this a place for constructive conversation and discourse? That is certainly why I value it so much and come here often to see what intelligent minds have to say about lots of issues. I don't like complaining about it, it just felt like I got trolled via the downvote and while I agree my complaining clutters the conversation, I have no idea who moderates such things.
I didn't downvote, but I would suggest reading Hacker News Guidelines[1], specifically: Resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
> isn't downvoting supposed to be used to drop conversations that are trolling in nature
I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness. - Paul Graham[1]
1. That quote is a tad over 7 years old. Does PG still feel that way?
2. Smart people occasionally say dumb things. This may be a case in point.
The way HN makes articles very hard to read when they have only a handful of net negative down votes, whereas a handful of net up votes just moves the article up on the page, indicates that they are not functionally the opposite of each other. A down vote de facto means that you believe that people should not see the comment.
