If anything, the US is implementing the worst aspects of gigging. If you want a truly market-oriented gig economy, in the US at least the following factors amon

If anything, the US is implementing the worst aspects of gigging. If you want a truly market-oriented gig economy, in the US at least the following factors among many others must be addressed. * Healthcare costs. This is non-negotiable. On an unsustainable path, and will collapse soon. Read around at Karl Denninger's Market Ticker site. He makes the point more forcefully than some would be comfortable with, but we're in a pretty dire, advanced stage so strong words and stronger action are warranted. [1] * Payment term games. Small vendors abound with stories of customers yanking their chains, playing legalistic games around hyper-specific terms of delivery, or flat-out spuriously denying payment, etc. Once you climb the value ladder this tends to diminish quickly (at sufficiently high levels of operation, you become a key troubleshooting component of their organization, and they take care not to piss you off), but very small operators (1-10 man shops) preyed upon by big customers is unfortunately all-too-common to hear about. I'd prefer to see a Brandeis quote-styled mitigation. He said, "Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman." Some kind of information exchange, similar to a central clearinghouse of blockchain-secured documents in a transaction: if either side raises a dispute, the documents become viewable by all, with classification by disputed values, timelines, delays, court documents, etc. Works protection both directions, customers and vendors. * Liability externalization. I'm getting demands for unlimited or $100M data breach insurance coverage and indemnification for one week projects. This takes time to negotiate down to reasonable levels, usually involving scheduling calls with my broker to explain for the umpteenth time that, no, even if you are Sam-Fucking-Walton-Back-From-The-Dead, talking with Lloyd's of London, with Warren Buffett smiling beatifically in blessing upon the enterprise, you will not get such a policy, but it is the latest in an ongoing trend by big customers to externalize as much of the cost of liabilities as they possibly can pin on someone else. Fortunately, the insurance industry is sensibly refusing to even quote for such policies, but they could do a better job reaching out to legal and procurement departments to let them know they can't grab a number from IT about information security risk and then slap it into the insurance requirements clauses. I could go on, but I think you get the gist, and I'm far off the beaten track of this thread so I'll let myself out now. [1] https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=232164 https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=232164