12 ms·

“Side Hustle” as a Sign of the Apocalypse

185 points by electic 10y ago

pnathan 10y ago
Most of the "mom-tech" could also be described as "nobility-tech", which allows the old services for the nobility to be bought at a fee. Anyway... > Mommy used to clean my room. A: Handy. > Mommy used to do my laundry. A: Flycleaners. You'd be surprised how desirable this is when you have Significant Life Issues and you don't want your home to be a disaster. While the "side hustle" being mandatory is not a good place to be, having services which make your life easier is a good thing.
- jay_kyburz 10y ago
  I'm not sure what life issues you are referring to, but I sometimes find that when things are crazy in my working life, it helps to just switch it all off and do the laundry and clean the house. Standing out in the yard, pegging my shorts to the clothes line, surrounded by leafy trees and chirping bird can be nice.
  - pnathan 10y ago
    > sometimes find that when things are crazy in my working life, it helps to just switch it all off and do the laundry and clean the house. I'm not talking about work. Keeping my personal life off the InterTubes, let's say your aging parent is in hospice, and you spend most of your non-work time visiting them and ensuring their last days on earth are as comfortable as possible. That occurred for an extended family member recently. Other scenarios are quite plausible as well.
  - trevyn 10y ago
    Maybe that's why all of these services come out of San Francisco, where nobody has a yard. :-)
  - zzalpha 10y ago
    And that's great for you. When I get to the end of a stressful ten hour workday, personally, I'd rather not stare down the barrel of another 3-4 hours of house chores that have piled up due to the aforementioned ten hour work days. And that's just normal life. Anyone living as a caregiver, for example, would probably love to do away with your idyllic vision of pegging clothes on the line in lieu of, say, taking a breath and going for a walk...
- alphonsegaston 10y ago
  While for the individual, this may seem true in the short term, fostering a perpetually desperate underclass tends to have quite negative long term consequences for everyone's health and safety. From what I've seen of California, the well-off are fine with this tilt towards Central American-style stratification. But at some point, this trajectory comes at the cost at allying themselves with some grotesque form of thuggery (corrupt police state, rule by organized crime, etc). Maybe that's what we're inching towards.
  - zimablue 10y ago
    Disintermediation itself isn't tied to the creation of an underclass, rapid technological innovation destroying jobs might be but that's something we need to solve with welfare (and Americans are really going to have to get over their brainwashing that accepting government aid makes you scum). Literally the alternative to redistribution is making everyone poorer and manipulating the system so that factory workers can feel like they're worth the money they're paid. Eg. Brexit/Trump - protectionism.
    - alphonsegaston 10y ago
      What constitutes "rapid technological innovation" these days is just exceptionally bright people acting as middlemen to concentrate wealth into a new class of financiers. It's not structurally different from Wall St. UBI is just a story being peddled to keep the engineers on board because they're (right now) more moral and science fiction optimistic than their investment banker counterparts. Americans will gladly embrace (maybe have) authoritarianism before they'll abandon the just world fallacy of Capitalist individualism.
  - pnathan 10y ago
    I'd like to see a Gig Economy Union myself. Sure I can hire an Uber, get my laundry handled, my shopping done, but I want to know the poor s.o.b. doing the work has benefits and a decent wage, and isn't being screwed over by the app-company-of-the-month.
    - 10y ago
- branchless 10y ago
  These are two separate spheres. Rich people love having these, poor people hate having to work all hours to subsist.
- NovaS1X 10y ago
  Really? You have Significant Life Issues and you can't even manage to clean up your house or cook a meal? Do you really think you can organize your life when you can't even manage to organize your home or your own sustenance? What a joke. You don't need time, you need perspective.
  - pnathan 10y ago
    > What a joke. You don't need time, you need perspective. Your ignorant remark about me does you no credit. Many situations exist where there is simply either no time or no energy. Musicians touring, hospitalizations, illnesses - the list is long and varied. It's often much simpler to pay someone else to take care of things.
throwawaymaroon 10y ago
>Next, we’ll just start saying bipolar people have a side personality. ...
jly 10y ago
This article is spot on, in my view. More technology in our current economic system only reduces the overall number of 'good' jobs available, creating more inequality and increasing the divide of the haves and have-nots. Technology may not be inherently a bad thing, but when you combine it with an open global economic model built on unchecked capitalism, it will eventually create a distressing situation for many.
- ComradeTaco 10y ago
  I personally enjoy uber and use it frequently. However, after reviewing my Uber receipts, I realized how awful the drivers side of the deal was. Take gas, car milage, Ubers cut and then you have literally a fraction of minimum wage with no health insurance or 401k. Then I start to think, well heck, if this kind of gig economy displaces traditional employment, a lot of people will be one crisis from poverty. The future is really exciting, but unless we proceed carefully, we could end actually making things worse for the working class than they were decades ago.
  - alphonsegaston 10y ago
    It's already the case that things are far worse for the working class. The precipice we're on is creating a "nothing to lose" permanent underclass, with all the instability and desperation that entails.
  - knieveltech 10y ago
    That ship sailed. Here's what working class prospects looked like decades ago: - Stable lifetime employment with a single firm was not unusual. - Plentiful well-paying work was available for individuals with a grade school education. - Overtime pay kept work over 40 hours in a week to a minimum and it was considered unusual bordering on pathological to take work home. - Retirement pensions were a common company benefit. - Interests rates on savings routinely beat inflation. - Strong organized labor held even non-unionized employers in check. To summarize: a highschool grad with a modicum of luck could land an entry level job at a firm, work their entire life for that company, and retire without having to worry about eating cat food to pay for medicine.
ry4n413 10y ago
Don't fall for it, this smells of Russian propaganda.
- sctb 10y ago
  Please comment civilly and substantively or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
whack 10y ago
Call me a crank, but personally, I'm getting annoyed by people who love to blame tech companies for everything. "This unending hamster wheel of capitalism and technology is driving us all to the brink of insanity" Maybe that's true, but instead of blaming tech companies and brogrammers, maybe try taking a look in the mirror. You want to escape the rat race? Pack up your bags, move to bumfuck nowhere, and spend all your time reading medium blog posts. I guarantee you, you don't need a whole lot of money to do that. Or if that sounds too drastic, just sit at home for the holidays, take the subway, cook your own meals, and clean your own house. Personally, that sounds like hell to me. I like traveling to other cities and staying in people's homes. I like taking an uber to get around sometimes. I like ordering food on seamless and hiring house cleaners on Handy, so I'll have more time to do the things I actually enjoy. And if you don't want to do any of the above, that's fine too. Just pretend all of the above companies don't exist and do what you want with your life, instead of complaining about tech companies and "brogrammers" providing services that cater to other people besides yourself.
- branchless 10y ago
  > And if you don't want to do any of the above, that's fine too Most people have no choice on this. They have to work and it's just to subsist. Typical of hacker news that this would be the most up-voted comment. Regarding tech, the main change tech has brought is to allow very accurate tracking of debt. Most debt is created through land. Surplus value goes to the landlords and banks. Before this was not completely efficient, now banks can react to productivity changes much faster. Prices are set by the highest bidder. Tech has enabled "side jobs" which means they can outbid others for rent / mortgage (renting fiat money from a bank). Banks scale up fiat money creation in response. Other workers must respond and they too need a side job. If we all worked 3 days a week it would be enough to pay the rent. If we all worked 7 days a week it would be enough to pay the rent. But we cannot coordinate this as workers. Tech is working against workers. Economic rent extraction is now fully efficient.
  - rampage101 10y ago
    Not everybody is struggling out there... tech has some of the highest salaries for any industry. It is workers that are not in tech like traditional taxi drivers which are losing out badly to these innovations.
Animats 10y ago
For a better take on this, see "Hyper-reality".[1] (If possible, at 1080 line resolution.) This is augmented reality for the job monkey. It's not that far to this from the apps that tell the drones of Uber, TaskRabbit, and DoorDash where to go and what to do. Machines should think. People should work. [1] https://vimeo.com/166807261 https://vimeo.com/166807261
dvt 10y ago
What the article misses is that consumers drive startups like Seamless and Uber up the totem pole. Sure, some have more money than others, but clearly, if Seamless is succeeding then it must've hit a nerve. I mean I don't live in NYC, but whenever I'm there, I honestly hate it. It feels like the biggest concentration of assholery in the entire US. And I'm not saying this like some hippie pot-smoking LA liberal (because I adore LA), but as a European that is used to the hustle and bustle of city life. I was born in a small European city where people greeted each other and the streets were busy, etc. I grew up in Romania in the late 80s/early 90s.. I'd prefer living in the dilapidated Eastern Bloc to living in New York. Unless I was Donald Trump or something, but that misses the point. If people are riding in Ubers and if people are working for Uber, then, hey, maybe it's not such a terrible "soul-sucking" idea. I mean God knows I'm no Uber fanboy (I think their skirting of regulations and squeezing out markets is pretty dodgy at best), but maybe something needed to wake up the taxi companies and make cities take a serious look at their public transit systems. Silicon Valley may not always be a beacon of hope and joy, but Uber and Seamless are hardly the problems. If the author argued against companies like Theranos, he'd have a much better argument imo.
- alphonsegaston 10y ago
  Or the massive price subsidies/market dumping allow them to outcompete local competitors in a era of longer hours and decreasing wages.
- timr 10y ago
  "It feels like the biggest concentration of assholery in the entire US." I guess you haven't been to San Francisco. Take what you hate about New York, and wrap it with a thick layer of smug, futurist, "we're saving the world" self-adulation. At least in the 80s, the leveraged buyout assholes weren't trying to convince people that they were making the world a better place. Gordon Gekko was a satire. Now he's a "growth hacker" at a unicorn. I have never in my life met so many people who are excited about the idea of creating systemic unemployment as I have since living in bubble SF. Self-driving cars? Man...when Uber can fire all of those profit-sucking drivers, we'll be living the dream, won't we? And anyone who questions the premise of our glorious, pure capitalist future gets: "If people are riding in Ubers and if people are working for Uber, then, hey, maybe it's not such a terrible "soul-sucking" idea." OK seriously, dear HN: just because consumers want something doesn't make it good. Consumers want dirt cheap electronics, but don't want to think about the Chinese kid who is getting lead poisoning from his "side hustle" of pulling e-waste apart with his teeth. Consumers want to pay a bit less for their burrito, but not worry about the illegal immigrants who cooked it, and are being evicted from their five-man hovel in the Mission to make room for luxury condos. Capitalism doesn't optimize for "good". It optimizes for profit. Shitty jobs have always existed. These "gig economy" companies are celebrating this lifestyle, and trying to make it more prevalent and less lucrative for the labor. That's what sucks.
cryoshon 10y ago
it's the economy, stupid. normal people have so little income that working multiple jobs to get by is mainstream. this is a bad thing. it means that the people of our country are poor. defend it however you want.
jMyles 10y ago
I... don't really think this is a good read, for a few reasons. Let's look at (what I think is) the thesis: > Unfettered capitalism doesn’t give you time back or freedom or relaxation. It drills every orifice you have until a few more pennies drop out so the Q4 numbers look good for shareholders. The article then moves on to (albeit articulately) name "gig economy" companies as the vehicle for this exploitation. But are they? Without even thinking too hard, I think can of monstrous entities which are enemies of any notion of free market and which are far more easily understood as the machina of this phenomenon: * We have 2 million people in prison in the United States. Many of them have done nothing wrong, at least in any common sense set of definitions. It's not a stretch to say that many of them, while in prison, are victims of torture and intentional emotional and mental destruction. Even those that aren't are marked with a scarlet letter essentially for life. And thus they are left unable to be anything but victims of this corpratocratic predation upon their release. * The "health care" industry, empowered (in fact sustained almost entirely) by state-enshrined gatekeeper complexes and IP holdings, restrains these same people who "need a side hustle" from becoming healthy and independent of pharma, insurance, and hospitals. * The US government debt is about to hit $20 trillion, leaving these folks holding a bag they never agreed to pick up. * People are afraid to protest, much less disrupt, the above treatment. Police brutality, endemic and senseless state surveillance, the (accurate) sense that action in the streets is typically fruitless - these and other causes have people feeling lonely at home instead of realizing how common their dreams are. I just don't think that the gig economy is any harbinger of horror, not does it exist today in an environment of "unfettered capitalism" - not that I advocate such a thing. Nevertheless, with the elements I've named (and a dozen more like them) removed, these people looking for a "side hustle" might also be able to enjoy the fruits of the labor pool of which they're a part. I'm actually quite optimistic that that insurgent companies and methodologies are a sign that we will overcome these hardships. We have an utterly impotent incoming president, faith in government nearly nonexistent, and at the same time, incredible innovation and radical thinking. This doesn't seem like a formula for continued exploitation to me.
- kem 10y ago
  I probably agree with the essay's argument that the gig economy (or maybe, more specifically, a particular set of dystopian ads for it) is a sign of the apocalypse. It's just that, as you say, I don't think the gig economy is causing it.
Clubber 10y ago
Anyone who needs a title as dramatic as that is trying to sell you something.
- pasquinelli 10y ago
  sell you something as persuade you? is this a bad thing?
  - Clubber 10y ago
    I'm almost certain the Apocalypse isn't happening this time.
- deleted 10y ago
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m0llusk 10y ago
That a few companies use investor capital to screw customers and service providers alike says pretty much nothing about Silicon Valley. It is sad this guy saw an ad that offended him but why did he watch it in the first place?
- ohnotthatguy 10y ago
  One of the innumerable problems with advertising is that you can't "unsee" it. For instance: can you unread this reply to your comment? To suggest that it is the responsibility of an individual to ignore advertising in their environment, is to suggest that it is their responsibility to not pay attention to their surroundings, or read any signs. I think it is a perfectly natural reaction to see something that you understand to be a sardonic misrepresentation of a reality, and respond negatively.
arjie 10y ago
Whatever, man. Personal autarky is as inefficient an endeavour as the type practised by nations. Each man is as subject to the law of comparative advantage as a nation is. This disparagement of 'mom-tech' is the nth iteration of the same anti-trade nonsense that people have tried to peddle since before we had economists we called economists. My time is worth more to me than the other guy's time is to him. Stopping me from paying him is going to make both of us worse off.
RichardHeart 10y ago
That feeling when you realize that without the side hustle, you'd have even less, because the rich get richer and the poor, well, they don't have cars.
wallacoloo 10y ago
This is driving me up the wall: why do people use pull quotes in this manner? What does it accomplish, besides tricking me into thinking that I'm accidentally re-reading the paragraph I just read, and thereby interrupting the flow of the article? Pull quotes are a technique designed for print! You use them in magazines that have tens of articles and you want to grab the attention of somebody browsing the articles so that they read yours. But here on the web, I'm already reading your article! There's nothing else on the page - you already have my attention. Just look at the way this article ends: This unending hamster wheel of capitalism and technology is driving us all to the brink of insanity. “These days, everyone needs a side hustle.” Now that I think about it, that should be Elizabeth Warren’s campaign slogan in 2020. “These days, everyone needs a side hustle.” Now that I think about it, that should be Elizabeth Warren’s campaign slogan in 2020. Why not just say that last part once? Literally JUST present it in the fancy pull-quote "this is important" format, instead of once as normal text and immediately again as fancy text. Why are you having me read this twice?
- anonred 10y ago
  My guess is that it's designed to provide visual landmarks for (most) people who skim articles.
  - wallacoloo 10y ago
    I don't deny that stylizing text like this can be useful for people who skim. My proposal doesn't prevent that: only present those select bits of information in the big front-and-center style that grabs people's attention, and don't repeat them in the normal flow of text.
dsfyu404ed 10y ago
The author needs to get outside of the SV bubble. The proletariat generally don't need two jobs to eek out an existence except in handful of expensive cities on the coast.
- ithinkinstereo 10y ago
  Not sure it's that much better off outside SV. Drive thru eastern Kentucky or anywhere in WV. High unemployment and opiate addiction rates are the norm. This will of course intensify as technology progress marches forward, though we might see a slowdown with the incoming administration's rejection of globalism.
- ugh_seriously_ 10y ago
  !! Have you ever worked out how many hours you need to support more than zero children at minimum wage and also pay rent in even rural areas? Any time asking cashiers or retail workers---even in rural areas---what their lives are like is likely to reveal multiple jobs to just make ends meet.
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temp99 10y ago
Uber's not really viable as a part-time job. In LA, I've driven 20 hours this week and grossed $12.25/hour. Plus a $65 35-ride bonus, it comes to about $16/hour. If you miss the ride bonuses (offered Mon-Fri morning, Fri-Sun), you can't make any money. If you drive enough, you should be able to earn $19-20 an hour, minus gas (e.g. $3/hour), car and insurance. Your net profits will be around $12 to 15/hour. As a side job, it's probably better to get a flexible 1-2 day shift at a restaurant.
aswanson 10y ago
Uber would have been great for me in college. I had a ton of free time, a good driving record, a car, and no money. This post is silly.
iamdave 10y ago
The take-away about Seamless I overheard in real time in a frightening way. Sitting in the smoking area, waiting for a coworker to come grab me for work, two of my neighbors were talking about how they actively avoided becoming friends with other neighbors, they just didn't want that kind of connection and preferred that neighbors just stayed in their lane as people who ostensibly share a dwelling in the same high-rise. And it wasn't the first time I'd heard people expressing that viewpoint. In a completely different part of town when I rented an apartment I hard that same conversation. Maybe I'm overly sentimental or looking at the idea of 'neighborhoods' and 'communities' with rose-tinted glasses but that shook me, it bothered me to my core-deeply. I've always looked at neighborhoods as the bedrock of citizenry, the most basic form of what it means to be among people who shared your at least some of your interests of home and hearth because of said proximity. People now actively avoid those kinds of relationships. I still think about it to this day, despite having walked to pubs with the very people I heard talking about this. Maybe I'm thinking too much about it.
- littledude 10y ago
  I think this tends to happen once density of the place people live goes above a certain threshold. People don't have to rely on their neighbours because they know so many people (friends/family/coworkers) close by they can contact if they need help with anything. On the flip side your neigbours are most likely potential see you arguing with a partner, coming home drunk late at night, going out after calling in sick etc. See things that tarnish your reputation, more downside than upside if you find out you have connections and potential gossip.
- aphextron 10y ago
  >People now actively avoid those kinds of relationships. Let's not act like people haven't avoided these kinds of 'polite' relationships forever. Most people in cities do not know nor do they want to know their neighbors. I personally feel no interest whatsoever in forcing social interaction between some people I happen to live in physical proximity to. Seamless has nothing to do with that.
- manigandham 10y ago
  That has nothing to do with Seamless. People avoid each other if/when they want to and there are thousands of factors that play into this. Everyone's different. Find the neighborhood that you're comfortable with.
kosei 10y ago
My mommy used to go to the store for me: Amazon My mommy used to do errands for me: Task Rabbit My mommy used to sell my stuff at garage sales: OfferUp
ohnotthatguy 10y ago
Great post. I had been working on a pitch for Uber for Wet Nurses but didn't realize my target demographic was actually 20's to 30's white males. Maybe I should crunch the numbers again. Now to counteract the 'Seamless effect', we should build an Uber for Companionship & Human Contact, you know.. like an Uber for 'Dating'. We can reap a percentage of the income the companion makes from the date...
- edoceo 10y ago
  Yea, like a pimp!
  - ohnotthatguy 10y ago
    If only there was a way to pimp people who were providing a legal service, like giving people rides, or delivering food, or providing lodging...
BadassFractal 10y ago
What exactly is the alternative? What's the proposed solution? Agrarian utopia? Creating artificial jobs for people whose skills are no longer needed by society? Basic income?
jsz0 10y ago
I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to be upset about here. Working more to make more money isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's certainly the most realistic option available for people who want or need more money. Money solves a lot of problems in life. Money can make your life better. If there was a $30 minimum wage or universal income many people would still choose to work more if the option was available. You shouldn't assume the hamster on the wheel isn't enjoying the experience.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  > You shouldn't assume the hamster on the wheel isn't enjoying the experience. Where to begin to describe how out of touch this comment is with working class America.
gweinberg 10y ago
I think the fundamental premise of this article is wrong. The author seems to assume that the "side hustle" is on top of a full time job. But I think the intended implication is that uber drivers are for the most part people who do not have a full time job. They are semi-retired, or only working part time at another job, or between "real" jobs and working at uber to help make ends meet until they can find a new "real" job, or they're mostly househusbands or something like that.
diyorgasms 10y ago
I just took an uber ride where the driver told me she left her granddaughter's birthday party to drive people. Maybe she has different priorities than I would, but I think it's more likely that she's economically desperate enough that she has to miss those moments to make ends meet. As much as I like the service uber provides, I don't think we should pretend people are working for uber without duress.
- ardivekar 10y ago
  I mean, sure, but how is that Uber's fault? The same lady would have to have otherwise worked at McDonalds if Uber didn't exist. And if Uber paid its drivers more, it wouldn't be able to hire as many drivers, which means that the lowest level of worker has an implicit denial of a job. Minimum wage sucks, but when there's an excess of supply, it's the unfortunate truth.
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TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
> Next, we’ll just start saying bipolar people have a side personality. …is this drawing an analogy between periods of mania and depression being like a change of personality, or is the author confusing bipolar disorder for dissociative identity disorder? It seems like a cheap joke in either case.
marisa_kirisame 10y ago
The author of this piece seems to be blaming tech companies for things that have existed for far longer than the Internet has. >Mommy used to pick me up from soccer practice. A: Uber. >Mommy used to do my laundry. A: Flycleaners. >Mommy used to clean my room. A: Handy. >Mommy used to buy me groceries. A: Blue Apron. >Mommy used to cook me food. A: Seamless. Uber did not invent taxis. Seamless did not invent food delivery. Laundry service has been available for centuries. Cleaning services likewise. Grocery stores have offered delivery service for ages. Restaurant delivery service has probably existed since shortly after the restaurant itself was created. I don't even understand the argument that we should hate "brogrammers" who create apps to do "what mommy used to do". I use Uber because I don't have a car. I use Seamless because I'm not much of a cook. I drop my laundry off at the local laundromat because it's convenient. Should I buy a car, a washer/dryer, and culinary classes instead?
_andromeda_ 10y ago
>This unending hamster wheel of capitalism and technology is driving us all to the brink of insanity Things have gotten so much better over the years because of capitalism and more so because of technology. Without capitalism and technology, I dare say that majority of the 7 billion of us who are alive now would be dead. No jokes. Dead. There'd be no antibiotics, sufficient food production, infrastructure to move produce efficiently, and the list is unending. This article leaves a lot to be desired.
- kordless 10y ago
  > I dare say that majority of the 7 billion of us who are alive now would be dead. No jokes. Dead. This is an illogical statement which rationalizes utilizing technology and capitalism to achieve greater numbers of instances of people. If we didn't have the resources/medicine/tech to support the 7.5B people here, then a lot of us wouldn't have been born. Jokes or not, if you aren't born, you can't die. ;) I suppose you are technically dead if you are never born, but nobody cares if they aren't ever born (or we can't tell, which is the same thing). I do acknowledge people don't want to suffer greatly and causing suffering either passively or actively in others is wrong. Technology reminds me of sugar in the days of low fat diets. Yes, technology can help reduce suffering, but at what cost does it do that and is it worth it in the long run? I could rationalize that the supreme pinnacle of human civilization will be perfect capitalism and technology that is beyond comprehension, enabling quadrillions of us to live here in this solar system and in good harmony with each other. Who's to say if more people/entities aren't a good thing why aren't there more of us? Surely not me!
  - _andromeda_ 10y ago
    > If we didn't have the resources/medicine/tech to support the 7.5B The obvious implication from my statement is that if you took it away right now... You and I both know what I mean. Edit: Didn't mean to be rude, just got a tad frustrated
- tmuir 10y ago
  Here's a counter argument to all of your points: Superbugs have evolved to be resistant to all antibiotics. Industrial scale food production is a huge strain on the environment, and in many cases pretty terrible conditions for the animals. Capitalism exploits consumers' ignorance through information asymmetry. Think of how many businesses would be destroyed if deceit of all kinds were outlawed, and everyone had the true power of a Google or Facebook to analyze exabytes of information for their own benefit. Much of technology is only economically viable as means of advertising and surveillance. I'm a gainfully employed engineer who values western medicine, spends way too much time on the internet, and doesn't want to see billions of people die. However, to claim that capitalism and technology don't have unintended consequences is intellectually dishonest.
GBond 10y ago
My prediction is Uber et al will take notice of this HN thread and address it by coming out with ads on how their drivers are treated well.

185 points by electic 10y ago

Most of the "mom-tech" could also be described as "nobility-tech", which allows the old services for the nobility to be bought at a fee. Anyway... > Mommy used to clean my room. A: Handy. > Mommy used to do my laundry. A: Flycleaners. You'd be surprised how desirable this is when you have Significant Life Issues and you don't want your home to be a disaster. While the "side hustle" being mandatory is not a good place to be, having services which make your life easier is a good thing.

jay_kyburz 10y ago
I'm not sure what life issues you are referring to, but I sometimes find that when things are crazy in my working life, it helps to just switch it all off and do the laundry and clean the house. Standing out in the yard, pegging my shorts to the clothes line, surrounded by leafy trees and chirping bird can be nice.
- pnathan 10y ago
  > sometimes find that when things are crazy in my working life, it helps to just switch it all off and do the laundry and clean the house. I'm not talking about work. Keeping my personal life off the InterTubes, let's say your aging parent is in hospice, and you spend most of your non-work time visiting them and ensuring their last days on earth are as comfortable as possible. That occurred for an extended family member recently. Other scenarios are quite plausible as well.
- trevyn 10y ago
  Maybe that's why all of these services come out of San Francisco, where nobody has a yard. :-)
- zzalpha 10y ago
  And that's great for you. When I get to the end of a stressful ten hour workday, personally, I'd rather not stare down the barrel of another 3-4 hours of house chores that have piled up due to the aforementioned ten hour work days. And that's just normal life. Anyone living as a caregiver, for example, would probably love to do away with your idyllic vision of pegging clothes on the line in lieu of, say, taking a breath and going for a walk...
alphonsegaston 10y ago
While for the individual, this may seem true in the short term, fostering a perpetually desperate underclass tends to have quite negative long term consequences for everyone's health and safety. From what I've seen of California, the well-off are fine with this tilt towards Central American-style stratification. But at some point, this trajectory comes at the cost at allying themselves with some grotesque form of thuggery (corrupt police state, rule by organized crime, etc). Maybe that's what we're inching towards.
- zimablue 10y ago
  Disintermediation itself isn't tied to the creation of an underclass, rapid technological innovation destroying jobs might be but that's something we need to solve with welfare (and Americans are really going to have to get over their brainwashing that accepting government aid makes you scum). Literally the alternative to redistribution is making everyone poorer and manipulating the system so that factory workers can feel like they're worth the money they're paid. Eg. Brexit/Trump - protectionism.
  - alphonsegaston 10y ago
    What constitutes "rapid technological innovation" these days is just exceptionally bright people acting as middlemen to concentrate wealth into a new class of financiers. It's not structurally different from Wall St. UBI is just a story being peddled to keep the engineers on board because they're (right now) more moral and science fiction optimistic than their investment banker counterparts. Americans will gladly embrace (maybe have) authoritarianism before they'll abandon the just world fallacy of Capitalist individualism.
- pnathan 10y ago
  I'd like to see a Gig Economy Union myself. Sure I can hire an Uber, get my laundry handled, my shopping done, but I want to know the poor s.o.b. doing the work has benefits and a decent wage, and isn't being screwed over by the app-company-of-the-month.
  - 10y ago
branchless 10y ago
These are two separate spheres. Rich people love having these, poor people hate having to work all hours to subsist.
NovaS1X 10y ago
Really? You have Significant Life Issues and you can't even manage to clean up your house or cook a meal? Do you really think you can organize your life when you can't even manage to organize your home or your own sustenance? What a joke. You don't need time, you need perspective.
- pnathan 10y ago
  > What a joke. You don't need time, you need perspective. Your ignorant remark about me does you no credit. Many situations exist where there is simply either no time or no energy. Musicians touring, hospitalizations, illnesses - the list is long and varied. It's often much simpler to pay someone else to take care of things.

throwawaymaroon 10y ago

>Next, we’ll just start saying bipolar people have a side personality. ...

jly 10y ago

This article is spot on, in my view. More technology in our current economic system only reduces the overall number of 'good' jobs available, creating more inequality and increasing the divide of the haves and have-nots. Technology may not be inherently a bad thing, but when you combine it with an open global economic model built on unchecked capitalism, it will eventually create a distressing situation for many.

ComradeTaco 10y ago
I personally enjoy uber and use it frequently. However, after reviewing my Uber receipts, I realized how awful the drivers side of the deal was. Take gas, car milage, Ubers cut and then you have literally a fraction of minimum wage with no health insurance or 401k. Then I start to think, well heck, if this kind of gig economy displaces traditional employment, a lot of people will be one crisis from poverty. The future is really exciting, but unless we proceed carefully, we could end actually making things worse for the working class than they were decades ago.
- alphonsegaston 10y ago
  It's already the case that things are far worse for the working class. The precipice we're on is creating a "nothing to lose" permanent underclass, with all the instability and desperation that entails.
- knieveltech 10y ago
  That ship sailed. Here's what working class prospects looked like decades ago: - Stable lifetime employment with a single firm was not unusual. - Plentiful well-paying work was available for individuals with a grade school education. - Overtime pay kept work over 40 hours in a week to a minimum and it was considered unusual bordering on pathological to take work home. - Retirement pensions were a common company benefit. - Interests rates on savings routinely beat inflation. - Strong organized labor held even non-unionized employers in check. To summarize: a highschool grad with a modicum of luck could land an entry level job at a firm, work their entire life for that company, and retire without having to worry about eating cat food to pay for medicine.

ry4n413 10y ago

Don't fall for it, this smells of Russian propaganda.

sctb 10y ago
Please comment civilly and substantively or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

whack 10y ago

Call me a crank, but personally, I'm getting annoyed by people who love to blame tech companies for everything. "This unending hamster wheel of capitalism and technology is driving us all to the brink of insanity" Maybe that's true, but instead of blaming tech companies and brogrammers, maybe try taking a look in the mirror. You want to escape the rat race? Pack up your bags, move to bumfuck nowhere, and spend all your time reading medium blog posts. I guarantee you, you don't need a whole lot of money to do that. Or if that sounds too drastic, just sit at home for the holidays, take the subway, cook your own meals, and clean your own house. Personally, that sounds like hell to me. I like traveling to other cities and staying in people's homes. I like taking an uber to get around sometimes. I like ordering food on seamless and hiring house cleaners on Handy, so I'll have more time to do the things I actually enjoy. And if you don't want to do any of the above, that's fine too. Just pretend all of the above companies don't exist and do what you want with your life, instead of complaining about tech companies and "brogrammers" providing services that cater to other people besides yourself.

branchless 10y ago
> And if you don't want to do any of the above, that's fine too Most people have no choice on this. They have to work and it's just to subsist. Typical of hacker news that this would be the most up-voted comment. Regarding tech, the main change tech has brought is to allow very accurate tracking of debt. Most debt is created through land. Surplus value goes to the landlords and banks. Before this was not completely efficient, now banks can react to productivity changes much faster. Prices are set by the highest bidder. Tech has enabled "side jobs" which means they can outbid others for rent / mortgage (renting fiat money from a bank). Banks scale up fiat money creation in response. Other workers must respond and they too need a side job. If we all worked 3 days a week it would be enough to pay the rent. If we all worked 7 days a week it would be enough to pay the rent. But we cannot coordinate this as workers. Tech is working against workers. Economic rent extraction is now fully efficient.
- rampage101 10y ago
  Not everybody is struggling out there... tech has some of the highest salaries for any industry. It is workers that are not in tech like traditional taxi drivers which are losing out badly to these innovations.

Animats 10y ago

For a better take on this, see "Hyper-reality".[1] (If possible, at 1080 line resolution.) This is augmented reality for the job monkey. It's not that far to this from the apps that tell the drones of Uber, TaskRabbit, and DoorDash where to go and what to do. Machines should think. People should work. [1] https://vimeo.com/166807261 https://vimeo.com/166807261

dvt 10y ago

What the article misses is that consumers drive startups like Seamless and Uber up the totem pole. Sure, some have more money than others, but clearly, if Seamless is succeeding then it must've hit a nerve. I mean I don't live in NYC, but whenever I'm there, I honestly hate it. It feels like the biggest concentration of assholery in the entire US. And I'm not saying this like some hippie pot-smoking LA liberal (because I adore LA), but as a European that is used to the hustle and bustle of city life. I was born in a small European city where people greeted each other and the streets were busy, etc. I grew up in Romania in the late 80s/early 90s.. I'd prefer living in the dilapidated Eastern Bloc to living in New York. Unless I was Donald Trump or something, but that misses the point. If people are riding in Ubers and if people are working for Uber, then, hey, maybe it's not such a terrible "soul-sucking" idea. I mean God knows I'm no Uber fanboy (I think their skirting of regulations and squeezing out markets is pretty dodgy at best), but maybe something needed to wake up the taxi companies and make cities take a serious look at their public transit systems. Silicon Valley may not always be a beacon of hope and joy, but Uber and Seamless are hardly the problems. If the author argued against companies like Theranos, he'd have a much better argument imo.

alphonsegaston 10y ago
Or the massive price subsidies/market dumping allow them to outcompete local competitors in a era of longer hours and decreasing wages.
timr 10y ago
"It feels like the biggest concentration of assholery in the entire US." I guess you haven't been to San Francisco. Take what you hate about New York, and wrap it with a thick layer of smug, futurist, "we're saving the world" self-adulation. At least in the 80s, the leveraged buyout assholes weren't trying to convince people that they were making the world a better place. Gordon Gekko was a satire. Now he's a "growth hacker" at a unicorn. I have never in my life met so many people who are excited about the idea of creating systemic unemployment as I have since living in bubble SF. Self-driving cars? Man...when Uber can fire all of those profit-sucking drivers, we'll be living the dream, won't we? And anyone who questions the premise of our glorious, pure capitalist future gets: "If people are riding in Ubers and if people are working for Uber, then, hey, maybe it's not such a terrible "soul-sucking" idea." OK seriously, dear HN: just because consumers want something doesn't make it good. Consumers want dirt cheap electronics, but don't want to think about the Chinese kid who is getting lead poisoning from his "side hustle" of pulling e-waste apart with his teeth. Consumers want to pay a bit less for their burrito, but not worry about the illegal immigrants who cooked it, and are being evicted from their five-man hovel in the Mission to make room for luxury condos. Capitalism doesn't optimize for "good". It optimizes for profit. Shitty jobs have always existed. These "gig economy" companies are celebrating this lifestyle, and trying to make it more prevalent and less lucrative for the labor. That's what sucks.

cryoshon 10y ago

it's the economy, stupid. normal people have so little income that working multiple jobs to get by is mainstream. this is a bad thing. it means that the people of our country are poor. defend it however you want.

jMyles 10y ago

I... don't really think this is a good read, for a few reasons. Let's look at (what I think is) the thesis: > Unfettered capitalism doesn’t give you time back or freedom or relaxation. It drills every orifice you have until a few more pennies drop out so the Q4 numbers look good for shareholders. The article then moves on to (albeit articulately) name "gig economy" companies as the vehicle for this exploitation. But are they? Without even thinking too hard, I think can of monstrous entities which are enemies of any notion of free market and which are far more easily understood as the machina of this phenomenon: * We have 2 million people in prison in the United States. Many of them have done nothing wrong, at least in any common sense set of definitions. It's not a stretch to say that many of them, while in prison, are victims of torture and intentional emotional and mental destruction. Even those that aren't are marked with a scarlet letter essentially for life. And thus they are left unable to be anything but victims of this corpratocratic predation upon their release. * The "health care" industry, empowered (in fact sustained almost entirely) by state-enshrined gatekeeper complexes and IP holdings, restrains these same people who "need a side hustle" from becoming healthy and independent of pharma, insurance, and hospitals. * The US government debt is about to hit $20 trillion, leaving these folks holding a bag they never agreed to pick up. * People are afraid to protest, much less disrupt, the above treatment. Police brutality, endemic and senseless state surveillance, the (accurate) sense that action in the streets is typically fruitless - these and other causes have people feeling lonely at home instead of realizing how common their dreams are. I just don't think that the gig economy is any harbinger of horror, not does it exist today in an environment of "unfettered capitalism" - not that I advocate such a thing. Nevertheless, with the elements I've named (and a dozen more like them) removed, these people looking for a "side hustle" might also be able to enjoy the fruits of the labor pool of which they're a part. I'm actually quite optimistic that that insurgent companies and methodologies are a sign that we will overcome these hardships. We have an utterly impotent incoming president, faith in government nearly nonexistent, and at the same time, incredible innovation and radical thinking. This doesn't seem like a formula for continued exploitation to me.

kem 10y ago
I probably agree with the essay's argument that the gig economy (or maybe, more specifically, a particular set of dystopian ads for it) is a sign of the apocalypse. It's just that, as you say, I don't think the gig economy is causing it.

Clubber 10y ago

Anyone who needs a title as dramatic as that is trying to sell you something.

pasquinelli 10y ago
sell you something as persuade you? is this a bad thing?
- Clubber 10y ago
  I'm almost certain the Apocalypse isn't happening this time.
deleted 10y ago
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m0llusk 10y ago

That a few companies use investor capital to screw customers and service providers alike says pretty much nothing about Silicon Valley. It is sad this guy saw an ad that offended him but why did he watch it in the first place?

ohnotthatguy 10y ago
One of the innumerable problems with advertising is that you can't "unsee" it. For instance: can you unread this reply to your comment? To suggest that it is the responsibility of an individual to ignore advertising in their environment, is to suggest that it is their responsibility to not pay attention to their surroundings, or read any signs. I think it is a perfectly natural reaction to see something that you understand to be a sardonic misrepresentation of a reality, and respond negatively.

arjie 10y ago

Whatever, man. Personal autarky is as inefficient an endeavour as the type practised by nations. Each man is as subject to the law of comparative advantage as a nation is. This disparagement of 'mom-tech' is the nth iteration of the same anti-trade nonsense that people have tried to peddle since before we had economists we called economists. My time is worth more to me than the other guy's time is to him. Stopping me from paying him is going to make both of us worse off.

RichardHeart 10y ago

That feeling when you realize that without the side hustle, you'd have even less, because the rich get richer and the poor, well, they don't have cars.

wallacoloo 10y ago

This is driving me up the wall: why do people use pull quotes in this manner? What does it accomplish, besides tricking me into thinking that I'm accidentally re-reading the paragraph I just read, and thereby interrupting the flow of the article? Pull quotes are a technique designed for print! You use them in magazines that have tens of articles and you want to grab the attention of somebody browsing the articles so that they read yours. But here on the web, I'm already reading your article! There's nothing else on the page - you already have my attention. Just look at the way this article ends: This unending hamster wheel of capitalism and technology is driving us all to the brink of insanity. “These days, everyone needs a side hustle.” Now that I think about it, that should be Elizabeth Warren’s campaign slogan in 2020. “These days, everyone needs a side hustle.” Now that I think about it, that should be Elizabeth Warren’s campaign slogan in 2020. Why not just say that last part once? Literally JUST present it in the fancy pull-quote "this is important" format, instead of once as normal text and immediately again as fancy text. Why are you having me read this twice?

anonred 10y ago
My guess is that it's designed to provide visual landmarks for (most) people who skim articles.
- wallacoloo 10y ago
  I don't deny that stylizing text like this can be useful for people who skim. My proposal doesn't prevent that: only present those select bits of information in the big front-and-center style that grabs people's attention, and don't repeat them in the normal flow of text.

dsfyu404ed 10y ago

The author needs to get outside of the SV bubble. The proletariat generally don't need two jobs to eek out an existence except in handful of expensive cities on the coast.

ithinkinstereo 10y ago
Not sure it's that much better off outside SV. Drive thru eastern Kentucky or anywhere in WV. High unemployment and opiate addiction rates are the norm. This will of course intensify as technology progress marches forward, though we might see a slowdown with the incoming administration's rejection of globalism.
ugh_seriously_ 10y ago
!! Have you ever worked out how many hours you need to support more than zero children at minimum wage and also pay rent in even rural areas? Any time asking cashiers or retail workers---even in rural areas---what their lives are like is likely to reveal multiple jobs to just make ends meet.

deleted 10y ago

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temp99 10y ago

Uber's not really viable as a part-time job. In LA, I've driven 20 hours this week and grossed $12.25/hour. Plus a $65 35-ride bonus, it comes to about $16/hour. If you miss the ride bonuses (offered Mon-Fri morning, Fri-Sun), you can't make any money. If you drive enough, you should be able to earn $19-20 an hour, minus gas (e.g. $3/hour), car and insurance. Your net profits will be around $12 to 15/hour. As a side job, it's probably better to get a flexible 1-2 day shift at a restaurant.

aswanson 10y ago

Uber would have been great for me in college. I had a ton of free time, a good driving record, a car, and no money. This post is silly.

iamdave 10y ago

The take-away about Seamless I overheard in real time in a frightening way. Sitting in the smoking area, waiting for a coworker to come grab me for work, two of my neighbors were talking about how they actively avoided becoming friends with other neighbors, they just didn't want that kind of connection and preferred that neighbors just stayed in their lane as people who ostensibly share a dwelling in the same high-rise. And it wasn't the first time I'd heard people expressing that viewpoint. In a completely different part of town when I rented an apartment I hard that same conversation. Maybe I'm overly sentimental or looking at the idea of 'neighborhoods' and 'communities' with rose-tinted glasses but that shook me, it bothered me to my core-deeply. I've always looked at neighborhoods as the bedrock of citizenry, the most basic form of what it means to be among people who shared your at least some of your interests of home and hearth because of said proximity. People now actively avoid those kinds of relationships. I still think about it to this day, despite having walked to pubs with the very people I heard talking about this. Maybe I'm thinking too much about it.

littledude 10y ago
I think this tends to happen once density of the place people live goes above a certain threshold. People don't have to rely on their neighbours because they know so many people (friends/family/coworkers) close by they can contact if they need help with anything. On the flip side your neigbours are most likely potential see you arguing with a partner, coming home drunk late at night, going out after calling in sick etc. See things that tarnish your reputation, more downside than upside if you find out you have connections and potential gossip.
aphextron 10y ago
>People now actively avoid those kinds of relationships. Let's not act like people haven't avoided these kinds of 'polite' relationships forever. Most people in cities do not know nor do they want to know their neighbors. I personally feel no interest whatsoever in forcing social interaction between some people I happen to live in physical proximity to. Seamless has nothing to do with that.
manigandham 10y ago
That has nothing to do with Seamless. People avoid each other if/when they want to and there are thousands of factors that play into this. Everyone's different. Find the neighborhood that you're comfortable with.

kosei 10y ago

My mommy used to go to the store for me: Amazon My mommy used to do errands for me: Task Rabbit My mommy used to sell my stuff at garage sales: OfferUp

ohnotthatguy 10y ago

Great post. I had been working on a pitch for Uber for Wet Nurses but didn't realize my target demographic was actually 20's to 30's white males. Maybe I should crunch the numbers again. Now to counteract the 'Seamless effect', we should build an Uber for Companionship & Human Contact, you know.. like an Uber for 'Dating'. We can reap a percentage of the income the companion makes from the date...

edoceo 10y ago
Yea, like a pimp!
- ohnotthatguy 10y ago
  If only there was a way to pimp people who were providing a legal service, like giving people rides, or delivering food, or providing lodging...

BadassFractal 10y ago

What exactly is the alternative? What's the proposed solution? Agrarian utopia? Creating artificial jobs for people whose skills are no longer needed by society? Basic income?

jsz0 10y ago

I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to be upset about here. Working more to make more money isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's certainly the most realistic option available for people who want or need more money. Money solves a lot of problems in life. Money can make your life better. If there was a $30 minimum wage or universal income many people would still choose to work more if the option was available. You shouldn't assume the hamster on the wheel isn't enjoying the experience.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
> You shouldn't assume the hamster on the wheel isn't enjoying the experience. Where to begin to describe how out of touch this comment is with working class America.

gweinberg 10y ago

I think the fundamental premise of this article is wrong. The author seems to assume that the "side hustle" is on top of a full time job. But I think the intended implication is that uber drivers are for the most part people who do not have a full time job. They are semi-retired, or only working part time at another job, or between "real" jobs and working at uber to help make ends meet until they can find a new "real" job, or they're mostly househusbands or something like that.

diyorgasms 10y ago

I just took an uber ride where the driver told me she left her granddaughter's birthday party to drive people. Maybe she has different priorities than I would, but I think it's more likely that she's economically desperate enough that she has to miss those moments to make ends meet. As much as I like the service uber provides, I don't think we should pretend people are working for uber without duress.

ardivekar 10y ago
I mean, sure, but how is that Uber's fault? The same lady would have to have otherwise worked at McDonalds if Uber didn't exist. And if Uber paid its drivers more, it wouldn't be able to hire as many drivers, which means that the lowest level of worker has an implicit denial of a job. Minimum wage sucks, but when there's an excess of supply, it's the unfortunate truth.

deleted 10y ago

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TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago

> Next, we’ll just start saying bipolar people have a side personality. …is this drawing an analogy between periods of mania and depression being like a change of personality, or is the author confusing bipolar disorder for dissociative identity disorder? It seems like a cheap joke in either case.

marisa_kirisame 10y ago

The author of this piece seems to be blaming tech companies for things that have existed for far longer than the Internet has. >Mommy used to pick me up from soccer practice. A: Uber. >Mommy used to do my laundry. A: Flycleaners. >Mommy used to clean my room. A: Handy. >Mommy used to buy me groceries. A: Blue Apron. >Mommy used to cook me food. A: Seamless. Uber did not invent taxis. Seamless did not invent food delivery. Laundry service has been available for centuries. Cleaning services likewise. Grocery stores have offered delivery service for ages. Restaurant delivery service has probably existed since shortly after the restaurant itself was created. I don't even understand the argument that we should hate "brogrammers" who create apps to do "what mommy used to do". I use Uber because I don't have a car. I use Seamless because I'm not much of a cook. I drop my laundry off at the local laundromat because it's convenient. Should I buy a car, a washer/dryer, and culinary classes instead?

_andromeda_ 10y ago

>This unending hamster wheel of capitalism and technology is driving us all to the brink of insanity Things have gotten so much better over the years because of capitalism and more so because of technology. Without capitalism and technology, I dare say that majority of the 7 billion of us who are alive now would be dead. No jokes. Dead. There'd be no antibiotics, sufficient food production, infrastructure to move produce efficiently, and the list is unending. This article leaves a lot to be desired.

kordless 10y ago
> I dare say that majority of the 7 billion of us who are alive now would be dead. No jokes. Dead. This is an illogical statement which rationalizes utilizing technology and capitalism to achieve greater numbers of instances of people. If we didn't have the resources/medicine/tech to support the 7.5B people here, then a lot of us wouldn't have been born. Jokes or not, if you aren't born, you can't die. ;) I suppose you are technically dead if you are never born, but nobody cares if they aren't ever born (or we can't tell, which is the same thing). I do acknowledge people don't want to suffer greatly and causing suffering either passively or actively in others is wrong. Technology reminds me of sugar in the days of low fat diets. Yes, technology can help reduce suffering, but at what cost does it do that and is it worth it in the long run? I could rationalize that the supreme pinnacle of human civilization will be perfect capitalism and technology that is beyond comprehension, enabling quadrillions of us to live here in this solar system and in good harmony with each other. Who's to say if more people/entities aren't a good thing why aren't there more of us? Surely not me!
- _andromeda_ 10y ago
  > If we didn't have the resources/medicine/tech to support the 7.5B The obvious implication from my statement is that if you took it away right now... You and I both know what I mean. Edit: Didn't mean to be rude, just got a tad frustrated
tmuir 10y ago
Here's a counter argument to all of your points: Superbugs have evolved to be resistant to all antibiotics. Industrial scale food production is a huge strain on the environment, and in many cases pretty terrible conditions for the animals. Capitalism exploits consumers' ignorance through information asymmetry. Think of how many businesses would be destroyed if deceit of all kinds were outlawed, and everyone had the true power of a Google or Facebook to analyze exabytes of information for their own benefit. Much of technology is only economically viable as means of advertising and surveillance. I'm a gainfully employed engineer who values western medicine, spends way too much time on the internet, and doesn't want to see billions of people die. However, to claim that capitalism and technology don't have unintended consequences is intellectually dishonest.

GBond 10y ago

My prediction is Uber et al will take notice of this HN thread and address it by coming out with ads on how their drivers are treated well.