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I didn't get that impression, but maybe that's because I'm not in the geographical area of the author's vitriol. About halfway through he makes a good point ab

I didn't get that impression, but maybe that's because I'm not in the geographical area of the author's vitriol. About halfway through he makes a good point about Uber drivers not making much money from the job. He mentions hypothetically giving drivers equity in the company. I think the end of the article had a pretty clear call-to-action, without gloating. Personally it got me thinking about ways I could change services I've built to pay both myself and users creating content on it. Think about if you could make money by posting great photos on Instagram. Not many SV engineers might care, but for others, that could potentially provide a much-needed source of income and an alternative to the currently non-existent UBI.

EdHominem 11y ago
Of course Uber drivers make way more than cabbies in 80% of circumstances, but yes - let's attack the only free-market company in he mix. Two issues about the ownership: 1) They're being paid in transferable tokens which are redeemable for stock (ie, money) if they desire. 2) Uber isn't worth its valuation so they're better off with money.
AnthonyMouse 11y ago
> About halfway through he makes a good point about Uber drivers not making much money from the job. He mentions hypothetically giving drivers equity in the company. Which, if you think about it, clearly doesn't work. The driver already gets the large majority of the fare. It's just that the driver gets most of one fare whereas Uber gets a small slice of every fare so the driver makes $8 once and Uber makes $2 times a billion. Even if you gave every single share of the company to the drivers and left nothing for any other investors, they would only get the small remaining slice of the fare after whatever administrative overhead the company has. In other words they would get the equivalent of like a 10% raise. It doesn't fix anything. The fundamental problem is that the market is highly competitive so it drives down fares/wages. If you want to get paid more, you have to do some other kind of work. > Personally it got me thinking about ways I could change services I've built to pay both myself and users creating content on it. Think about if you could make money by posting great photos on Instagram. Which is exactly the same problem. When you post a picture on Instagram, Instagram on average makes a few cents. They're a billion dollar company because it's a few cents times a billion people. If you gave all the money to the people posting pictures they would still be making far less than minimum wage.
- shopkins 11y ago
  Yes that's all true. But I wasn't suggesting that it would work, just that: 1) I think the parent missed the point that the author was suggesting potential alternatives to UBI, and 2) It's an interesting idea that some of one's income could come from products like Instagram. Of course the companies are the ones creating the value in the first place, which is why they make the $2 x 1B. But even when Uber rolls out its driverless cars, the Uber drivers who were automated out of their jobs are still going to want to work at something. Hell, they might even want to try to make money from their new endeavor rather than live off of some basic income. And the "arrogance" I think the author is referring to is Sam's notion [0] that the people working all these soon-to-be-obsolete jobs across the country are going to suddenly need UBI so they don't end up living out on the street, which just doesn't seem true. [0] "However, if we cannot find a new kind of work for billions of people, we’ll be faced with a new idle class. The obvious conclusion is that the government will just have to give these people money, and there’s been increasing talk about a “basic income”—i.e, any adult who wanted it could have, say, $15,000 a year." http://blog.samaltman.com/technology-and-wealth-inequality http://blog.samaltman.com/technology-and-wealth-inequality
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    > And the "arrogance" I think the author is referring to is Sam's notion [0] that the people working all these soon-to-be-obsolete jobs across the country are going to suddenly need UBI so they don't end up living out on the street, which just doesn't seem true. Doesn't it though? Automation pretty much has a formula. The cost of R&D for the automation has to be less than [human compensation for doing X] times [number of humans who do X] in order for X to be automated. The cost of developing the automation is highly correlated with how much intelligence is required to do the job, so the things automation targets most easily are anything that pays well, employs a lot of people and doesn't require high intelligence. Automation replaces jobs starting from the middle and going up and down from there. So the safest jobs are the ones requiring the highest intelligence and the ones paying the lowest wages, and as automation improves, the level of intelligence required to be in the first group will increase and the wages paid to the second group will decrease. Now suppose you're someone who is already below the intelligence threshold for the first group. You can still get the second type of job, but soon enough that type of job won't pay a living wage (assuming it even does currently). And if we continue to have minimum wage laws then you will instead find yourself unemployed, because automation will drive the value of unskilled labor below minimum wage. UBI fixes that. It lets you add the UBI to the low value of your labor and end up with enough to live on. Or use the UBI as the safety net required to do higher reward work with higher risk of failure.

EdHominem 11y ago

Of course Uber drivers make way more than cabbies in 80% of circumstances, but yes - let's attack the only free-market company in he mix. Two issues about the ownership: 1) They're being paid in transferable tokens which are redeemable for stock (ie, money) if they desire. 2) Uber isn't worth its valuation so they're better off with money.

AnthonyMouse 11y ago

> About halfway through he makes a good point about Uber drivers not making much money from the job. He mentions hypothetically giving drivers equity in the company. Which, if you think about it, clearly doesn't work. The driver already gets the large majority of the fare. It's just that the driver gets most of one fare whereas Uber gets a small slice of every fare so the driver makes $8 once and Uber makes $2 times a billion. Even if you gave every single share of the company to the drivers and left nothing for any other investors, they would only get the small remaining slice of the fare after whatever administrative overhead the company has. In other words they would get the equivalent of like a 10% raise. It doesn't fix anything. The fundamental problem is that the market is highly competitive so it drives down fares/wages. If you want to get paid more, you have to do some other kind of work. > Personally it got me thinking about ways I could change services I've built to pay both myself and users creating content on it. Think about if you could make money by posting great photos on Instagram. Which is exactly the same problem. When you post a picture on Instagram, Instagram on average makes a few cents. They're a billion dollar company because it's a few cents times a billion people. If you gave all the money to the people posting pictures they would still be making far less than minimum wage.

shopkins 11y ago
Yes that's all true. But I wasn't suggesting that it would work, just that: 1) I think the parent missed the point that the author was suggesting potential alternatives to UBI, and 2) It's an interesting idea that some of one's income could come from products like Instagram. Of course the companies are the ones creating the value in the first place, which is why they make the $2 x 1B. But even when Uber rolls out its driverless cars, the Uber drivers who were automated out of their jobs are still going to want to work at something. Hell, they might even want to try to make money from their new endeavor rather than live off of some basic income. And the "arrogance" I think the author is referring to is Sam's notion [0] that the people working all these soon-to-be-obsolete jobs across the country are going to suddenly need UBI so they don't end up living out on the street, which just doesn't seem true. [0] "However, if we cannot find a new kind of work for billions of people, we’ll be faced with a new idle class. The obvious conclusion is that the government will just have to give these people money, and there’s been increasing talk about a “basic income”—i.e, any adult who wanted it could have, say, $15,000 a year." http://blog.samaltman.com/technology-and-wealth-inequality http://blog.samaltman.com/technology-and-wealth-inequality
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  > And the "arrogance" I think the author is referring to is Sam's notion [0] that the people working all these soon-to-be-obsolete jobs across the country are going to suddenly need UBI so they don't end up living out on the street, which just doesn't seem true. Doesn't it though? Automation pretty much has a formula. The cost of R&D for the automation has to be less than [human compensation for doing X] times [number of humans who do X] in order for X to be automated. The cost of developing the automation is highly correlated with how much intelligence is required to do the job, so the things automation targets most easily are anything that pays well, employs a lot of people and doesn't require high intelligence. Automation replaces jobs starting from the middle and going up and down from there. So the safest jobs are the ones requiring the highest intelligence and the ones paying the lowest wages, and as automation improves, the level of intelligence required to be in the first group will increase and the wages paid to the second group will decrease. Now suppose you're someone who is already below the intelligence threshold for the first group. You can still get the second type of job, but soon enough that type of job won't pay a living wage (assuming it even does currently). And if we continue to have minimum wage laws then you will instead find yourself unemployed, because automation will drive the value of unskilled labor below minimum wage. UBI fixes that. It lets you add the UBI to the low value of your labor and end up with enough to live on. Or use the UBI as the safety net required to do higher reward work with higher risk of failure.