6 ms·

That is a good idea. If you sell ice cream in the street you still need a Pedlar's License in the UK. If it is a school fete and you are selling ice cream to pa

That is a good idea. If you sell ice cream in the street you still need a Pedlar's License in the UK. If it is a school fete and you are selling ice cream to passers-by in the street then that is still law breaking but if you are doing that one day in a year in a small village with the money going to charity then that can be overlooked, but every day? I think you would be closed down soon. I think the gig economy should have a similar Pedlar's License. There should be some paperwork. Maybe no more hard than Basic Food Hygiene that you get working in the food trade. This would also allow local authorities to refuse. So if they didn't want the food delivery guys then they could just restrict licences. Standards, e.g. lights on bikes, MOST for cars, all should be part of this license for doing door to door deliveries. Standardisation could result in no drivers getting it wrong whether hired the UPS or FedEx way. If the driver ID was a standardized way of doing tracking then that could even be part of the final mile procedure.

kbenson 9y ago
More licensure with requirements for using the license might be good for a gig economy, but likely only if we have some way of vetting licenses for general usefulness, so they aren't just ways to limit a market and protect the existing license holders and not the public.[1] If we had rules about what a license should promote (such as public safety, accountability, etc) and what it should try to prevent (rent seeking, protectionism) and metrics by which to measure this (even if an impartial panel), we could possible greatly increase the number of licenses we require while also lowering the bar of entry for many existing licensed businesses. I understand this would be a tricky path to take. It's layering bureaucracy, which is often problematic. But I'm not sure we necessarily want random unaccountable people driving around throwing packages at us, nor doctors practicing without experience, and I don't think having to pay $1000 and take a one week course for licensure to deliver packages for Amazon is useful either. 1: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/04/14/524007928/episode-381-when-business-loves-regulation http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/04/14/524007928/episo...

kbenson 9y ago

More licensure with requirements for using the license might be good for a gig economy, but likely only if we have some way of vetting licenses for general usefulness, so they aren't just ways to limit a market and protect the existing license holders and not the public.[1] If we had rules about what a license should promote (such as public safety, accountability, etc) and what it should try to prevent (rent seeking, protectionism) and metrics by which to measure this (even if an impartial panel), we could possible greatly increase the number of licenses we require while also lowering the bar of entry for many existing licensed businesses. I understand this would be a tricky path to take. It's layering bureaucracy, which is often problematic. But I'm not sure we necessarily want random unaccountable people driving around throwing packages at us, nor doctors practicing without experience, and I don't think having to pay $1000 and take a one week course for licensure to deliver packages for Amazon is useful either. 1: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/04/14/524007928/episode-381-when-business-loves-regulation http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/04/14/524007928/episo...