# The dark side of the gig economy **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 23, 2017, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835 "2017-03-23T14:09:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/41 "2017-03-24T18:22:04Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > To the contrary, feudal Europe was organized around property rights. The serf wasn’t free to travel because anywhere he went he’d be trespassing on private property. In a lot of feudal societies the serfs were considered to be part of the property. If you acquired ownership to a parcel of land you also owned the people who lived and worked on it. Serfs weren’t allowed to travel because it was regarded as them stealing property from the landowner; the stolen property being themselves and their labor. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/42 "2017-03-24T18:35:42Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > … Is it as simple as statists are just ranting against a cold, cold world? > > … The way you suggest this system was created is awkwardly simplified to say the least. Sounds like a conspiracy theory. The system wasn’t created by a group of people. It arose through voluntary interactions and judgements on those interactions by people who studied and discovered law. A very complex process, unlike democracy. > > By seeking to sever these arrangements, elitist statists refuse to recognize they are irrelevant. > > Instead of offering better options through a voluntary capitalist framework, which would require ingenuity and hard work, statists only seek to cobble together a majority of the electorate, gain control of the state apparatus, and destroy property rights in order to dictate behavior that pleases their sensibilities. Capitalists on the other hand strive to satisfy consumer desires through strictly voluntary means in the most efficient way possible. In a world of scarcity, this is the only thing that can be done to improve options. Have you traveled much outside of the U.S.A., **Will**? I meet median-wage earners from Marxist dictatorships like France on their voluntary month-long vacations and chat with them. They have the peculiar idea that life should be work & play, not work & work. From the pitying looks they give me when I reveal my birth-country, I’ll guess their outlook is different from yours. They don’t seem aware that they’re being oppressed by the “irrelevant” dictators who “steal their property at gunpoint” and waste it on healthcare for unproductive people — is this because they’ve been brainwashed? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/43 "2017-03-24T18:37:24Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It’s great to have something like Uber driving or babysitting as your first job. But it shouldn’t be your only job. Do you think your father would be a millionaire if he had been an Uber driver all his life? The kind of economy that gave your father the opportunity to rise is what’s disappearing. Nowadays a lot of people start at the bottom and find they can’t leave the bottom. I think quite a few of those who are enamored of the gig system think that they can be a starving musician or tech entrepreneur all night and gig to pay for it all day. So, they’re like on their big life path, fer realz, and just waiting tables until they’re discovered or bought out. Totally new thing, man. Too bad for those who are utterly deluded about their music, writing, poety, or tech insights and will never make as much from those as they do with window-washing gigs. At least they aren’t, you know, working for bureaucrats. (Those would be the bureaucrats who hire them for $10 window jobs because they can afford it.) ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/44 "2017-03-24T19:22:32Z")
> [@Pearl\_Clutching\_Provocateur](#): > > Excuse me, if this were Walmart, all we would hear is how Republicans exploit the working class and how they need food stamps to survive working there… Now that we see Uber and Fivver and Rover and Groupon run from Silicon Valley doing the exact same thing we don’t hear a peep. :rolleyes: This is a warning for failure to follow a moderator’s instructions by continuing to bring up sweeping generalizations in this fashion after being directed to avoid threadshiting. [/moderating] ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/45 "2017-03-24T21:46:35Z")
A point re Social Security and pay rates. So far,and with no immediate prospect of change, to get full SS benefits upon reaching “Retirement Age”\* or incurring a “Permanent Disability”\*\* requires you to have paid into the system for 40 quarters. That is the FICA withholding on your pay check. People who are paid “under the table” do not pay into SS. If your employer does not withhold SS tax, it is your responsibility to mail a check to SSA. I’m sure every “gig” worker either has FICA withheld or pays into SS personally. Exception: the Social Security Administration also administers SSI - a supplemental income apart from Retirement/Disability. AIUI, It does not require 40 quarters. Presumably, the gig worker may qualify. Note that it is defined and called “supplemental” - it is not intended as a full income, and is a whole lot less money than SS. - - which is set by politicians and keeps getting raised \*\* - the definition of which can vary widely. See all the “exposés” of “disabled” people playing handball. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/46 "2017-03-24T22:26:10Z")
It may be interesting to consider an economy that is nearly all gig. Apparently 80-90% of people in [India](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/03/india-much-entrepreneurial-society-united-states-thats-problem.html) are self-employed. Lots of reasons why and lots of consequences that follow. An interesting read. ---
**Author:** ![HumbleThinker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5daacb/32.png) [@HumbleThinker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HumbleThinker)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2017, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/47 "2017-03-25T03:24:02Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > It depends how you twist the word “voluntary”. I never said individuals made perfectly rational choices. I said that they choose what they believe to be the best option for them. It would help the statist argument if they simply came out and said that they want to make decisions for people on how to live their life. That’s what it’s all about. The statist has come up with many excuses for doing just that. Behind it all is the need to control behavior that offends their sensibilities. > > These options are ten times better than the options \>90% of individuals had for \>99% of human history. These are options that are open to people because of the reality of life. Scarcity is real. No matter how many think pieces on the subject are published by Slate, there is no post-scarcity economy. Humans have made great strides against scarcity since the introduction of capitalism, and it is evidenced by the great options even the poorest of the poor have in relation to their ancestors, but scarcity is still a fact of life. > > If having what an modern elitist liberal deems “poor options” makes decisions involuntary, even the “well-off” people of 1000 years ago did not live voluntary lives. What kind of choice is it when the best option involves no air-conditioning, toilet paper, or affordable spices. > > I don’t see how a system where a person can take the best available offer from anyone in the world is flawed. I see the flaw in a system where irrelevant people can take that option away from that person. Telling someone they can’t walk miles and miles to a job that barely allows them to subsist and where they’ll end up working themselves to death is patently different than adjusting the system so that that isn’t their best option. Being forced to choose between working yourself to death and dying from lack of resources to subsist is not in any way a rational choice. There is never a rational choice to be made when all legal options lead to death. None choose to be born in the society they were born in, therfore they never agreed to the social compact. Just as it would be irrational for someone to agree to a compact that would lead to their death, it would be immoral for anyone to be forced into a compact that forces them to die in order to subsist or not subsist at all. Thus the burden is on individuals in society to have opportunities available for all individuals to rationally subsist, or to directly care for them until that is possible. We are far beyond a near limitless account of available food and other resources that are available to anyone willing to work to collect them as long as they only take what they could use without it spoiling. We are also at the point in our society where we ate focused on everyone thriving, not simply subsisting. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2017, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/48 "2017-03-25T15:08:17Z")
> [@HumbleThinker](#): > > TNone choose to be born in the society they were born in, therfore they never agreed to the social compact. I realize you qualify this a bit, but I’d say the prevailing social compact is something an individual agrees to the same way they agree to the prevailing climate and language. You can fight it, and probably starve (or be killed); you can make the best of it by complying with its terms; or you can change it by changing some element of the society. Or you can leave for another social zone, which may or may not exist. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2017, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/49 "2017-03-25T17:59:30Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Yes. For example, serfs in medieval Europe chose the gig of working the Lord’s land for pittance because it was superior to other opportunities, which included rape and starvation. > > One alternative which might have been more lucrative for the serf was to steal a sword and become a highwayman, earning from transactions with travelers who voluntarily preferred to give their coins instead of their lives. Unfortunately for the serf, irrelevant people — the precursors of modern-day statists — passed laws making highway robbery illegal. Serfs didn’t choose their status, anymore than slaves did. (It didn’t have quite the same set-up, but you weren’t given a choice to become one or not.) ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2017, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/50 "2017-03-25T18:28:58Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Or regulating them in basic, sensible ways that ensure that what we have is a healthy business economy, rather than the poor being taken advantage of by people who know damn well how desperate many of them are to have _any_ job, and can therefore offer incredibly shitty conditions and wages… Not everyone pines for the days when you worked 12 hours for a pittance, then lost your job because the machine you were working on that hadn’t been maintained in forever malfunctioned and took your arm off, leading to you not being able to do your job because you’re one arm short. the gilded age labor market is octopus’s wet dream ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2017, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/51 "2017-03-26T03:04:31Z")
In case it has escaped anyone’s notice: The people who run the large corporations are not in the habit of finding ways to make their worker’s lives cushy and comfty. Find pics of a large office in the 50’s US. And a 50’s Bank branch. The Secretarial Pool is gone - the email killed the typed memo, and those low-paying jobs disappeared. The BofA ERMA project (run by Stanford Research) proved that a computer could automate 90% of a bank’s bookkeeping. Before the IBM check sorter, your cancelled check was returned to your branch and put in a mechanical sorting device. Your statement was prepared by the Branch. Wells Fargo account numbers were a classic example of why "account numbers should NEVER have any intelligence: - the first digit indicated account type. Next three were the branch number (see a problem with only 999 branches possible?) the last were called “customer number” - but only within that branch. Your “customer number” could be the same as mine - if we used different branches. That number made returning the checks to the Branch very easy - the whole point of the number scheme. (WFB no longer uses this system. This info is now of historical interest only) Nobody cried when the Bank Tellers and check sorters were replaced. Nobody cried when the Secretarial Pool was fired. Nobody cried when the floor sweepers were let go and replaced by one person driving a machine. The truckers DID scream when their trucks started telling on them when they tweaked their schedules to get time to visit home (or a brothel), but the tattletale stayed. Now robots are threatening even assembly line jobs which require complex skills. The critical part that kept humans on the job was the eyeball - machines were blind. Then somebody invented an eyeball for robots. The floodgates for robotic replacement are now full open - what the robot eye did not do, AI now can. The whole structure of how we distribute wealth is up for grabs - those absolute minimum “work or starve” jobs are going away and never coming back. If there are more people than “jobs” for people (meaning: still haven’t got a robot to do this), then how does a person “earn” his keep? I’m old and will soon be dead - but the young will see this problem up close and personal real soon. Start figuring out how this new economic structure is going to work. ---
**Author:** ![HumbleThinker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5daacb/32.png) [@HumbleThinker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HumbleThinker)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/52 "2017-03-27T22:32:03Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I realize you qualify this a bit, but I’d say the prevailing social compact is something an individual agrees to the same way they agree to the prevailing climate and language. > > You can fight it, and probably starve (or be killed); you can make the best of it by complying with its terms; or you can change it by changing some element of the society. Or you can leave for another social zone, which may or may not exist. Accepting the reality of one’s situation is definitely a part of the equation, but I think where society (in the political sense) differs from climate and language is that it is something that began voluntarily and is continually changed and maintained by other humans. So in my view, it would be much more rational to complain about the details of a contract you had no hand in but are still bound by and are enforced by other humans whether it’s to your own detriment or not than it would be to complain about something we largely have no control over, particularly climate. Language falls somewhere in the middle, but that’s a different topic. ---
**Author:** ![HumbleThinker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5daacb/32.png) [@HumbleThinker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HumbleThinker)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/53 "2017-03-27T22:34:50Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > In case it has escaped anyone’s notice: > > The people who run the large corporations are not in the habit of finding ways to make their worker’s lives cushy and comfty. > > Find pics of a large office in the 50’s US. And a 50’s Bank branch. > > The Secretarial Pool is gone - the email killed the typed memo, and those low-paying jobs disappeared. > The BofA ERMA project (run by Stanford Research) proved that a computer could automate 90% of a bank’s bookkeeping. Before the IBM check sorter, your cancelled check was returned to your branch and put in a mechanical sorting device. Your statement was prepared by the Branch. > Wells Fargo account numbers were a classic example of why "account numbers should NEVER have any intelligence: - the first digit indicated account type. Next three were the branch number (see a problem with only 999 branches possible?) the last were called “customer number” - but only within that branch. Your “customer number” could be the same as mine - if we used different branches. > That number made returning the checks to the Branch very easy - the whole point of the number scheme. (WFB no longer uses this system. This info is now of historical interest only) > > Nobody cried when the Bank Tellers and check sorters were replaced. Nobody cried when the Secretarial Pool was fired. > > Nobody cried when the floor sweepers were let go and replaced by one person driving a machine. > > The truckers DID scream when their trucks started telling on them when they tweaked their schedules to get time to visit home (or a brothel), but the tattletale stayed. > > Now robots are threatening even assembly line jobs which require complex skills. > > The critical part that kept humans on the job was the eyeball - machines were blind. > Then somebody invented an eyeball for robots. > > The floodgates for robotic replacement are now full open - what the robot eye did not do, AI now can. > > The whole structure of how we distribute wealth is up for grabs - those absolute minimum “work or starve” jobs are going away and never coming back. > If there are more people than “jobs” for people (meaning: still haven’t got a robot to do this), then how does a person “earn” his keep? > > I’m old and will soon be dead - but the young will see this problem up close and personal real soon. > > Start figuring out how this new economic structure is going to work. If automation goes the way many think (or at least the people I’ve read think), I’m seeing a guaranteed income as more and more likely unless there’s some sort of economic innovation that makes that unnecessary. But that might be outside the scope of the OP. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/54 "2017-03-28T02:01:58Z")
Actually, the “gig economy” is a first step toward “no more jobs for humans”. It removes the certainty of income and reduces “benefits” to little, if anything more than “here’s some cash”. Uber made no secret of its desire to replace even a driver following a map controlled by Uber with a robot car. So much for “taxi driver” as minimal employment. Your fast food operation has you pulling your drink and some even have you running the ordering interface. My drug store is thrilled to send me my meds from a warehouse in another state - those darn Licensed Pharmacists are expensive - the robot pill counters are dirt cheap - and don’t even need lights on. If I were 20 years old in 2017, I’d be very, very afraid. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/55 "2017-03-28T04:32:32Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > You just cannot grapple with the fact that the person has decided that the offer is the best one anyone in the entire world has given them. You vilify the company or person who has made the best offer and pat yourself on the back for taking the option away. Clearly, what the market is indicating is, “Here is a job that needs to be done”. Now, my question is, how much is “the market” fucking the worker for the sake of a higher profit for the employer? The answer, due to the _obscenely_ lopsided relationship between worker and employer, generally is: “as much as is legally possible”. I’m sure that for many of these jobs, if they could, they would offer $4 an hour, and still find people for whom that is technically better than not working at all. I’m equally sure that for those same jobs, they could afford to pay $7.25 an hour. But without regulations and laws in place, they aren’t going to do that. They’re going to offer their tiny, paltry sum, > [@](#): > > Of course it’s not just “you”, it’s a lot of people who cannot grapple with this. They choose to not comprehend that they are irrelevant in this exchange. Fodder for psychologists, perhaps. If my boss can look at someone else doing my job and think, “Hang on, that guy is doing this work for 5 bucks an hour with no benefits, why am I paying _this_ schlub more than double that, plus health insurance and pension?” then I’d say I’m at least a _little_ relevant in this exchange. The job market affects all of us, whether we like it or not, and it’s in all of our best interests to ensure that this market is not predatory or > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > It depends how you twist the word “voluntary”. I never said individuals made perfectly rational choices. Huh? What’s irrational about choosing to work 80 hours a week for a pittance in unsafe and dangerous conditions with no guarantee that you won’t lose your job if you cough at your boss funny if it’s better than not working and thus starving? Absolutely nothing. It’s a perfectly rational decision. However, it’s one that springs from a system that is fundamentally _broken_, one that could have been better then and _definitely_ should be better now. And because the position of the worker in that case is inherently precarious and inherently weak, it’s up to everyone to ensure that we don’t enter into such race-to-the-bottom conditions. > [@](#): > > I said that they choose what they believe to be the best option for them. It would help the statist argument if they simply came out and said that they want to make decisions for people on how to live their life. That’s what it’s all about. The statist has come up with many excuses for doing just that. Behind it all is the need to control behavior that offends their sensibilities. Thank you for this un-asked-for and entirely nonsensical psychoanalysis. I wonder, is it reasonable to assume that you just want to be able to screw over anyone you personally employ? No? Then stop inventing reasons to paint us as bad people based on _fucking nothing_. Thanks. > [@](#): > > I don’t see how a system where a person can take the best available offer from anyone in the world is flawed. Let’s say my employer _could_ pay me anywhere between 1 and 8 dollars per hour for my work. In this hypothetical example, I am _entirely_ replaceable. 1 dollar is the bare minimum I need in order to not starve; 8 dollars is where my work ceases to be reasonably profitable for the employer. What motivation is there for my employer to offer me _anywhere near_ 8 dollars per hour for my work? Snagging the better employees? Ha ha. That’s not how this works. That’s pretty much not how this has _ever_ worked. For low-skilled, replaceable workers, it is almost always a race to the bottom. Now, it turns out the whole economy does better when I (and by extension the rest of the workers) get closer to 8 dollars an hour, because it means more people able to buy the shit that’s being sold and a more functional, fluid economy. It means my life is better, because I can actually save money, or buy things I want beyond bare subsistence. But it’s clearly worse for my employer, because if he pays me 8 dollars an hour, that’s 7 dollars not going into his pocket per hour, compared to the $1 wage. So why the hell would he do that? There’s nobody forcing him to. So instead, we continue this race to the bottom, with wages bottoming out at the point where starving to death occurs whether you work or not. This is why we have things like the minimum wage. Because everyone _except the single person who holds the power in the employee-employer relationship_ benefits when we do. But sure, you can just say it’s because we want to control people. It’s not like there’s any actual societal interest in ensuring that working conditions are better than in the gilded age. Speaking as someone currently living in an economy with far more work restrictions and far better support for the poor than America has, I cannot fucking fathom why anyone would actually support the positions you hold. Because it’s _nonsense_. It’s fairy tales, told by rich people to entrench their position. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/56 "2017-03-28T05:37:21Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > Actually, the “gig economy” is a first step toward “no more jobs for humans”. It removes the certainty of income and reduces “benefits” to little, if anything more than “here’s some cash”. > > Uber made no secret of its desire to replace even a driver following a map controlled by Uber with a robot car. > > So much for “taxi driver” as minimal employment. > > Your fast food operation has you pulling your drink and some even have you running the ordering interface. > My drug store is thrilled to send me my meds from a warehouse in another state - those darn Licensed Pharmacists are expensive - the robot pill counters are dirt cheap - and don’t even need lights on. > If I were 20 years old in 2017, I’d be very, very afraid. It seems like a self-destructive movement for the economy. Each individual employer benefits by reducing their payroll, either by reducing the number of employees or the amount they’re paid (and the former makes the latter easy). But businesses need more than just low production costs. They also need a customer base. And if every business is racing to the bottom on the goal of paying as little as possible to employees, where are they supposed to get these customers from? The handful of business owners aren’t going to be enough to support the economy, no matter how much money they have. A robust economy needs a large middle class. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/57 "2017-03-28T06:14:05Z")
Too early in the morning to make complex posts. Urgh. Some fixes: > [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > I’m sure that for many of these jobs, if they could, they would offer $4 an hour, and still find people for whom that is technically better than not working at all. I’m equally sure that for those same jobs, they could afford to pay $7.25 an hour. But without regulations and laws in place, they aren’t going to do that. They’re going to offer their tiny, paltry sum, and pretend that we should all be glad they’re offering work at all, as though they were doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, and as though they would be hiring labor if they didn’t _need_ labor. That’s sort of the dirty little secret at the heart of this - businesses will generally pay as little as they can for any given resource, and that includes labor. And if we don’t _force_ them to pay more, either via laws and regulations or via unionization, they won’t, even though they could. > [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > If my boss can look at someone else doing my job and think, “Hang on, that guy is doing this work for 5 bucks an hour with no benefits, why am I paying _this_ schlub more than double that, plus health insurance and pension?” then I’d say I’m at least a _little_ relevant in this exchange. The job market affects all of us, whether we like it or not, and it’s in all of our best interests to ensure that this market is not predatory or abusive, and actually works to _help_ people, rather than just helping a few rich capitalists. Derp. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/58 "2017-03-28T09:48:03Z")
You people are making the mistake of applying the effects of a major disruptive change to the economy, assuming everything else will stay the same. The gig economy and automation are going to have at least as profound effect as the industrial revolution. You can’t look at the invention of the steam engine and bemoan the loss of jobs in the sailing industry. > [@Little Nemo](#): > > It seems like a self-destructive movement for the economy. Each individual employer benefits by reducing their payroll, either by reducing the number of employees or the amount they’re paid (and the former makes the latter easy). It’s not. While employers reduce their headcount, they also reduce production costs, making products cheaper and more available. Automation and technology makes certain complex jobs more available to less skilled workers. Freed from tedious, dangerous or repetitive work, it allows workers to come up with other ways to utilize their skills. Imagine a world where you didn’t have to enter into a Faustian bargain where a company will provide you some minimal standard of living in exchange for chaining yourself to a cube 40 hours a week performing some stupid task you hate (or not task at all). 30 years ago, many of the jobs that exist now weren’t even imagined when I was trying to figure out what to study in college. Of course that’s the positive side. The darks side is something like Idiocracy where there really isn’t any actual work to do. Remember that everything from fast food, being a doctor, flying an airplane or managing a global corporation was completely automated such that a retard could do it (and still live a kick ass life!) I see that now in a lot of big companies where they are run by people who have been there 20 years and don’t know shit. So they outsource everything to layers of consultants and vendors. Eventually it will all be automated and you’ll just have a bunch of idiots in suits playing work. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/59 "2017-03-28T11:07:52Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Let’s say my employer _could_ pay me anywhere between 1 and 8 dollars per hour for my work. In this hypothetical example, I am _entirely_ replaceable. 1 dollar is the bare minimum I need in order to not starve; 8 dollars is where my work ceases to be reasonably profitable for the employer. What motivation is there for my employer to offer me _anywhere near_ 8 dollars per hour for my work? Snagging the better employees? Ha ha. That’s not how this works. That’s pretty much not how this has _ever_ worked. For low-skilled, replaceable workers, it is almost always a race to the bottom. Meanwhile in the real world, the race to the bottom for low-skilled, replaceable workers at Walmart has increased their starting wage to $10/h. I have no doubt there are decreases elsewhere, but it would help the argument to bring actual examples of this supposed race. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/60 "2017-03-28T14:10:49Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > Actually, the “gig economy” is a first step toward “no more jobs for humans”. Maybe. But it’s more the last evolution of the immensely service-driven economy we’ve grown/collapsed/evolved into over the last thirty years. From high-end “service” stuff to adults working at McD’s and Walmart to… “Hey, wash that windshield for ya?” Services =/= a viable economy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835.md?page=4)