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"Gig/Contract economy" is the analogue of outsourcing, except for the cheap workers being drawn from local population. Its a logical consequence from corporati

"Gig/Contract economy" is the analogue of outsourcing, except for the cheap workers being drawn from local population. Its a logical consequence from corporations wanting to reduce wages and legal trickery to avoid work liabilities and benefits for the workers. Its exploitative and ruthless example of what "capitalism" becomes when law doesn't hold the punch, companies just figured out the necessary mix of legal and tech means to avoid the system being labeled as "work" and pay fair wages/expenses per worker. Expect this type of "work" to increase and subsume new sectors of economy as they figure out how to transform them into uber model.

joshu 9y ago
Outsourcing just means using another entity to do the work. Did you mean offshoring?
- Sebguer 9y ago
  If you're going to be pedantic, at least be correct. The commonly understood meaning of 'outsourcing' is to use foreign labor. So commonly understood that even Webster includes it as part of their definitions: : to procure (something, such as some goods or services needed by a business or organization) from outside sources and especially from foreign or nonunion suppliers : to contract for work, jobs, etc., to be done by outside or foreign workers (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/outsource https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/outsource)
  - joshu 9y ago
    That does not jibe with common usage I hear in the field, despite what Webster says. For example, young startups frequently outsource CFO functions to someone up the street. To be truly pedantic, your definition doesn't say remote workers, just foreign, without specifying their region. OP talked about local workers in contrast. Not only does the definition not say I am wrong (it includes the thing I said) but I was speaking in context of OP's comment (about location) So you complained about my lack of precision and to do so you lost even more and didn't actually understand the context.
  - greenyoda 9y ago
    From my understanding (and Wikipedia agrees with me[1]), "outsourcing" simply means paying someone to perform work outside your company that the company would otherwise perform. For example, my employer outsources payroll to ADP, and outsources office cleaning to a service company rather than hiring its own cleaning staff. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing - "In business, outsourcing involves the contracting out of a business process (e.g. payroll processing, claims processing) and operational, and/or non-core functions (e.g. manufacturing, facility management, call center support) to another party."
- FrozenVoid 9y ago
  Outsourcing is the overarching concept to which offshoring and nearshoring belong. Obviously its much cheaper to outsource work to countries where wages are fraction of work rates in developed world. Startups use it agressively to reduce costs. https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/12/startups-use-gig-economy-to-outsource-jobs/ https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/12/startups-use-gig-econom... Now we have some economy sectors where offshore locations don't make sense(work is service-oriented & local) and bringing foreign workers is more expensive/legally complicated than a job is worth for the company. Thats where "gig economy" model comes in: it allows exploiting local workers for much cheaper wages, without bringing foreign labor. The outsourcing part is what work there was(regular food delivery jobs) made into granular contracts and "gigs"/"tasks", which divide the labor into independent segments(e.g. deliveries) where task distributed into local labor pool(as some kind of cloud computing with the humans being servers).
  - yunoe 9y ago
    Much of the "gig economy" seem to basically be "urban day labor".
pcprincipal 9y ago
"Cheap" is extremely misleading here. The gig economy has known data points where it has worked extremely well for a large number of people working within the rules defined by the companies who created these services. I heavily recommend Brad Stone's The Upstarts[1] as proof of this idea. There are Uber drivers and Airbnb hosts who did all types of incredible things because of the freedom that was a direct consequence of the gig economy. Sure, Uber Eats may be a raw deal, but let's not castigate a huge sweeping idea that has changed the face of humankind probably for the better. [1]https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HZFB3X0/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HZFB3X0/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
- afeezaziz 9y ago
  Yes, I have to agree with you here. Gig economy might reduce quality of life in developed countries but in SEA countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, gig economy is helping local populations to actually increase their income. Yes, USD5-8/hour might sound low, but in this side of the world, it is better than nothing.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- FrozenVoid 9y ago
  Thats corporate PR fluff. All the freedom in the world is worth very little on near starvation wages and total disposability of workers. The goal of "gig economy" is not independent free-thinking freelancers, its large pool of easily replaceable drones working for fraction of real wages. You can't support a family with being bound to such a labor scheme, nor you can't afford to be sick, less productive or unavailable/deficient in some productivity metric - as any change in productivity immediately reduces your income. If all economy was based on such cheap, disposable labor there would be fierce competition for basically slave wages. Corporate propaganda attempts like this shitty book hide its basically robbing the workers of their fair wages and benefits. In 10 years these "incredible things" uber drivers "did"(realistically a fraction of them) will not amount to nothing significant, while real jobs allow one to accumulate enough savings to be financially stable: gig economy hyper-exploitative nature means you are paid the minimum possible, that you have no financial stability, no fixed income, no insurance and zero employer responsibility(you really can't even try fight it legally on below-minimum wage). Gig economy replacing real jobs will lead to drastic drop in lower and middle class income, it will destroy whats left of outsourcing/offshoring and whatever union jobs remaining. How you can't understand "Sure, Uber Eats may be a raw deal" will become the norm very fast, with competition driving down wages and ethical race to the bottom. Gig economy subverts ethics and laws with clear economic benefit to corporations: they don't give a rats ass about flexibility, employer "freedom" and "independence". Thats all PR fiction, they just want their cheap labor that could be replaced at will and paid as little as possible.
specialist 9y ago
What's it called when the gigsters have to front their own capital to get the gigs? Pay to play? I get why an electrician has their own tools. Why does an Uber driver need their own car?
- deegles 9y ago
  It's obviously to keep the liability off of Uber's balance sheet.
- SilasX 9y ago
  >What's it called when the gigsters have to front their own capital to get the gigs? Pay to play? Normal freelancing/independent contracting. And yes, there's a dispute about whether the classification is legal, my point is just that there it's not something Uber invented (edit: or any of the other on-demand startups).
  - FrozenVoid 9y ago
    No. Its like being paid per each function of code developed. There is a segmentation of work into deliverable units(rides, deliveries). If programmers were replaced by gig economy, it would look like freelancers getting paid pennies for creating tiny pieces of code(with large competition between them for speed and performance): e.g. a gig where you write function X of project Y, which is then graded for performance and compliance and paid 60 cents, with a twist:you are only paid if your function is the best one among all submitted. With gamification and ratings, the competition become very fierce and people get near zero income, making the job unsustainable except for those living in third-world countries.
- calvinbhai 9y ago
  So that the loss aversion element of that investment makes them work like slaves

joshu 9y ago

Outsourcing just means using another entity to do the work. Did you mean offshoring?

Sebguer 9y ago
If you're going to be pedantic, at least be correct. The commonly understood meaning of 'outsourcing' is to use foreign labor. So commonly understood that even Webster includes it as part of their definitions: : to procure (something, such as some goods or services needed by a business or organization) from outside sources and especially from foreign or nonunion suppliers : to contract for work, jobs, etc., to be done by outside or foreign workers (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/outsource https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/outsource)
- joshu 9y ago
  That does not jibe with common usage I hear in the field, despite what Webster says. For example, young startups frequently outsource CFO functions to someone up the street. To be truly pedantic, your definition doesn't say remote workers, just foreign, without specifying their region. OP talked about local workers in contrast. Not only does the definition not say I am wrong (it includes the thing I said) but I was speaking in context of OP's comment (about location) So you complained about my lack of precision and to do so you lost even more and didn't actually understand the context.
- greenyoda 9y ago
  From my understanding (and Wikipedia agrees with me[1]), "outsourcing" simply means paying someone to perform work outside your company that the company would otherwise perform. For example, my employer outsources payroll to ADP, and outsources office cleaning to a service company rather than hiring its own cleaning staff. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing - "In business, outsourcing involves the contracting out of a business process (e.g. payroll processing, claims processing) and operational, and/or non-core functions (e.g. manufacturing, facility management, call center support) to another party."
FrozenVoid 9y ago
Outsourcing is the overarching concept to which offshoring and nearshoring belong. Obviously its much cheaper to outsource work to countries where wages are fraction of work rates in developed world. Startups use it agressively to reduce costs. https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/12/startups-use-gig-economy-to-outsource-jobs/ https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/12/startups-use-gig-econom... Now we have some economy sectors where offshore locations don't make sense(work is service-oriented & local) and bringing foreign workers is more expensive/legally complicated than a job is worth for the company. Thats where "gig economy" model comes in: it allows exploiting local workers for much cheaper wages, without bringing foreign labor. The outsourcing part is what work there was(regular food delivery jobs) made into granular contracts and "gigs"/"tasks", which divide the labor into independent segments(e.g. deliveries) where task distributed into local labor pool(as some kind of cloud computing with the humans being servers).
- yunoe 9y ago
  Much of the "gig economy" seem to basically be "urban day labor".

pcprincipal 9y ago

"Cheap" is extremely misleading here. The gig economy has known data points where it has worked extremely well for a large number of people working within the rules defined by the companies who created these services. I heavily recommend Brad Stone's The Upstarts[1] as proof of this idea. There are Uber drivers and Airbnb hosts who did all types of incredible things because of the freedom that was a direct consequence of the gig economy. Sure, Uber Eats may be a raw deal, but let's not castigate a huge sweeping idea that has changed the face of humankind probably for the better. [1]https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HZFB3X0/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HZFB3X0/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...

afeezaziz 9y ago
Yes, I have to agree with you here. Gig economy might reduce quality of life in developed countries but in SEA countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, gig economy is helping local populations to actually increase their income. Yes, USD5-8/hour might sound low, but in this side of the world, it is better than nothing.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
FrozenVoid 9y ago
Thats corporate PR fluff. All the freedom in the world is worth very little on near starvation wages and total disposability of workers. The goal of "gig economy" is not independent free-thinking freelancers, its large pool of easily replaceable drones working for fraction of real wages. You can't support a family with being bound to such a labor scheme, nor you can't afford to be sick, less productive or unavailable/deficient in some productivity metric - as any change in productivity immediately reduces your income. If all economy was based on such cheap, disposable labor there would be fierce competition for basically slave wages. Corporate propaganda attempts like this shitty book hide its basically robbing the workers of their fair wages and benefits. In 10 years these "incredible things" uber drivers "did"(realistically a fraction of them) will not amount to nothing significant, while real jobs allow one to accumulate enough savings to be financially stable: gig economy hyper-exploitative nature means you are paid the minimum possible, that you have no financial stability, no fixed income, no insurance and zero employer responsibility(you really can't even try fight it legally on below-minimum wage). Gig economy replacing real jobs will lead to drastic drop in lower and middle class income, it will destroy whats left of outsourcing/offshoring and whatever union jobs remaining. How you can't understand "Sure, Uber Eats may be a raw deal" will become the norm very fast, with competition driving down wages and ethical race to the bottom. Gig economy subverts ethics and laws with clear economic benefit to corporations: they don't give a rats ass about flexibility, employer "freedom" and "independence". Thats all PR fiction, they just want their cheap labor that could be replaced at will and paid as little as possible.

specialist 9y ago

What's it called when the gigsters have to front their own capital to get the gigs? Pay to play? I get why an electrician has their own tools. Why does an Uber driver need their own car?

deegles 9y ago
It's obviously to keep the liability off of Uber's balance sheet.
SilasX 9y ago
>What's it called when the gigsters have to front their own capital to get the gigs? Pay to play? Normal freelancing/independent contracting. And yes, there's a dispute about whether the classification is legal, my point is just that there it's not something Uber invented (edit: or any of the other on-demand startups).
- FrozenVoid 9y ago
  No. Its like being paid per each function of code developed. There is a segmentation of work into deliverable units(rides, deliveries). If programmers were replaced by gig economy, it would look like freelancers getting paid pennies for creating tiny pieces of code(with large competition between them for speed and performance): e.g. a gig where you write function X of project Y, which is then graded for performance and compliance and paid 60 cents, with a twist:you are only paid if your function is the best one among all submitted. With gamification and ratings, the competition become very fierce and people get near zero income, making the job unsustainable except for those living in third-world countries.
calvinbhai 9y ago
So that the loss aversion element of that investment makes them work like slaves