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'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom
- adrianN 9y ago> His medallion, once worth $1.1 million Wow. Why not sell the medallion immediately and retire to some place with low cost of living instead of working 12 hour night shifts and never seeing your spouse because she works the day shift?
- pjc50 9y agoBecause the medallion was a capital asset he was working to produce income, in the same manner as some people own trucks of about that value?
- gambiting 9y agoI can only assume he didn't buy it for 1.1 million dollars. If you bought a truck for say $100k, but after few years its value rose to $1.1M, I'd also recommend selling the truck instead of relying on the idea that the truck will retain its value and support retirement.
- icedchai 9y agoProbably because he was paying it off, one monthly payment at a time?
- gambiting 9y agoI was mostly agreeing with the article until this part: "His medallion, once worth $1.1 million, had plummeted in value to $180,000. The dramatic drop in the value of the medallion, which he had hoped to lease for $3,000 a month or sell to finance his retirement, wiped out his economic security. He faced financial ruin and poverty. And he was not alone." The medalions are stupid and shouldn't exist. Relying on their "value" for retirement is crazy. And like another commenter has said - if it was worth 1.1 million, why not sell it and retire, perhaps doing a less stressful job than driving a taxi for 12 hours in turns with your wife? It sounds like he gambled - that he could keep working, keep the medallion, and retire while leasing the medallion for $3000/month(!!!!!!!!!!) - and like all gambles, this one had a possibility of failing - and it did.
- LoSboccacc 9y agomedallions may have had sense but as a state regulated monopoly should never have had been transferable in the first place and should have had a (reasonably long) time limit on top of it.
- refurb 9y agoTo be honest, I actually feel bad for medallion owners, even if the medallion system is a bad one. The gov't sets ups a system, tells you the rules and says "if you buy an expensive medallion, you can drive a cab and make a living". The value of the medallion is purely based on the gov't promise to maintain the system. So you buy one (or many) and a few years later someone does a work around and the gov't says "oh well, I'm not going to try to enforce the medallion system any more." That sucks.
- adventured 9y ago> The value of the medallion is purely based on the gov't promise to maintain the system. There was never a government promise or guarantee to maintain the system as was. There was nothing more than a hope that they would. How is that any better than building your business around assuming Google was never going to change or improve their search algorithms pre Panda/Penguin? Or betting on newspaper classified ads never going away. Or a thousand other examples like that from the last century. One of the more common requirements of staying in business, is managing to adapt with change. The only alternative is for the government to try to freeze technological progress for the benefit of a few and at the expense of the many. Except that's impossible, the rest of the global economy will destroy you, leaving you in the stone age.
- WhompingWindows 9y agoSerfdom is not a good comparison. Serfs were essentially slaves required to work the land, they did not choose to do so at hours that suited them, which is a key "feature" of the gig economy. They also were required to work mines, logging, or whatever service the lord of the manor wished. Let's say you worked for ride-shaes the same hours as a serf, something like sunrise to sunset. If you drove an Uber in my city for that long, you'd probably make at least $100 pre-tax, and your overall income would be enough to support yourself in a far higher quality of life than even the greatest kings who ruled over the serfs.
- maxxxxx 9y agoDo you realize how obnoxiously condescending the line "look how good you have it over the people a few hundred years ago" is? How about we give that line to people who already have a lot but always want more? No, it's only used against the little guy who dares to want a decent life.
- kdamken 9y agoYeah, so maybe then the writer of the article shouldn't have used that as the title for it.
- WhompingWindows 9y agokdamken nails it. I'm responding to the author's hyperbolic use of the word serfdom, which carries with it an actual historical set of facts. Do I agree with the current distribution of income/wealth in the economy? No, in another thread I'm speaking about the low chances of companies using cash to hire new people, vs. paying off CEOs or stockholders. Yet, to compare Uber or Lyft workers to serfs is not historically valid.
- shusson 9y agoI think the point is we are heading in the direction of more inequality where people feel like slaves to the economy.
- 9y ago
- shusson 9y ago> Travis Kalanick, the former CEO of Uber and one of the founders, has a net worth of $4.8 billion. I agree that the working conditions of workers should improve but I never understand the comparison to the value of CEOs. Travis Kalanick isn't sleeping on $4.8 billion, it's in the economy.
- mpweiher 9y agoOkay. I take away all your money and then invest it. Fine with you?
- overthemoon 9y agoThat seems like a technicality. He's not searching his couch cushions for beer money.
- WhompingWindows 9y agoIs it though, or is it in stocks? And even if he cashed in on that 4.8 bln, what would he do with it? Surely not put it all as a bolus into the economy, no CEO does that, they'd place their funds into bonds or other stocks. He will likely still buy 1 pair of jeans, 2 pillows, and 1 ice cream like the rest of us. The true way to put that 4.8 billion into the economy is to give the consumers, the drivers and riders themselves, the best bottom line. Then each of them in turn can buy that one more product, far more spending than a CEO is likely to do.
- Agebor 9y agoThen the value just diffuses in the whole economy, ending up in investments in countless industries. Instead you can keep it in stocks of companies you believe in, like startups and interesting moonshots. It all ends up with the question - do you want the economy to decide where to focus the value (the diffusion) or do you want to decide yourself? But if you have this amount of money in the first place, you are statistically in the better place to decide than the economy.
- bbddg 9y ago
- throwaaawayNNV 9y agoI run a business where I hire remote people to do fairly basic tasks. I can pay them cheaply, replace them easily when they don't fit anymore. I am the "platform" and I extract the surplus. So I feel the article has very valid points... and I am on the "ruling capitalists" side of my little world. In order to sleep at night, I am just trying not to be an asshole, and to be decent in the way I pay and behave. But as a society, we cannot rely just on goodwill. In the age of globalization, and as a firm believer in the efficiency of market economy and capitalism, I think it is still time to reintroduce a new sort of new, rebranded "International Socialism" where "workers/people of the world, unite!" for everyone's good. The goal would be that people can have access to enough food, decent accommodation, healthcare, and retirement, so that on top of this base, we can use the efficiency of a globalized market economy. Not sure where to start...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- avoutthere 9y agoIf your workers are doing "fairly basic tasks", why should you be forced to pay them more than their work is worth?
- bbddg 9y agoHe doesn't pay them how much their work is worth. He pays less, that's how he makes money.
- throwaaawayNNV 9y agoExactly. I make most of the money, not them. And the day I reduce their hours significantly because I bring AI into the platform -and one day I will-, I will make even more, and they will make even less. I don't think I am individually wrong to pay market rate for their work, and keep the surplus, but the bigger question is, while nobody is wrong, including AI, where are we going as a society? What will be the consequences?
- BenoitEssiambre 9y agoNo this is not specific to the "gig" economy. Too much concentration of ownership in any kind of business is serfdom for non owners.
- CaptainZapp 9y agoThe difference being that when you work in a sallaried position you can rely on a certain economic baseline. You can expect a regular salary and defined benefits. The gig economy very much uppends those facts massively and gig economy can be profitable because they externalise the real costs. To summarize: I don't disagree that too miuch concentrated ownership is a bad thing, but disagree with your conclusion that it's not specific to the gig economy.
- madengr 9y agoPretty much stopped reading when I got to “hedonism and greed” part. Plenty of other communist rants to read. Is this an article or editorial? The people currently driving for Uber/Lyft will be in the same boat when automation comes. Driving a car requires a pulse and peripheral vision. It’s ripe for a race to the bottom.
- ptero 9y agoMost taxi drivers must work very long hours to earn enough to live on -- the driver mentioned reportedly worked 100-120 hour weeks for 14 years. While it may be OK to do this for a short time, doing this as a lifestyle is not good for a society not at war. Such jobs should be replaced by technology / gigs / something else. Being displaced by the technology is painful for the folks affected, but we should focus on minimizing transition pain for those affected (money, training, relocation, other help), not on blasting companies challenging this insanity.
- Zak 9y agoTaxis are going to be replaced by robots within the lifetimes of most people reading this. I think it's been clear for a while that owning a large segment of that market is Uber's end game. Under the classic hacker ethic, this is a good thing; humans shouldn't be forced to perform menial tasks. Of course, people currently performing those tasks for a living might not appreciate that. In the long term, however I think the safety advantage will be compelling.
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoWe'll die from starvation and exposure because we can't afford a home anymore, but at least we reduced traffic deaths and generated a lot of money for our shareholders in the process ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- xamuel 9y agoBy this logic we should pay everyone to dig ditches and fill them in. The solution isn't to preserve obsolete jobs, the solution is to find an economic system that doesn't assume everyone works for a living. Easier said than done, though, and the transition is gonna be ugly.
- Zak 9y agoPaul Graham wrote on HN a few years back something to the effect of "never in history has making the consumption of a resource more efficient resulted in less demand for it over the long term". With regard to human labor in particular, people have said of nearly every major breakthrough in mechanization or automation that it would destroy all the jobs, and every time, it has done no such thing. There are people saying "this time is different", but heuristically speaking, betting against a long historical track record is probably not a good bet.
- douglaswlance 9y agoIt's never been easier to start a business. We need more CEOs and business owners, not more serfs. Lack of wage growth incentivizes people to find new, more value-producing work. Subsidizing low-income work is self-destructive.
- cryoshon 9y agonah new business generation is way, way down. the reason why is precariousness. if you don't have a margin large enough to risk starting a new business, a new business isn't started.
- maxxxxx 9y agoWe can't all be CEOs. To run a business you need people who work for you. Both employees and employers play an important role in the economy and both should be treated with respect. Lack of wage growth also limits business creation. Most of us need some kind of reserve to start something. You can't start from absolutely zero while struggling to survive.
- douglaswlance 9y agoI did it. You can too. We can all be solo business owners.
- deft 9y ago"let's just all be CEOs!" "If you're poor you have more motivation to innovate so get off your ass". Get some perspective and life experience. Maybe a basic understanding of how the current system is designed would help too.
- JulianMorrison 9y agoIf we get a universal basic income set equal to a living wage, then the "gig economy" can go back to being actual gigs, that is, people doing a bit extra to get a bit extra.
- sokoloff 9y agoWhat's a living wage? $30K/yr? How many Americans are there (or just American adults)? 325M / 250M What's those two figures multiplied together? 9.8T / 7.5T What's the total federal tax revenues in 2016? 3.5T To what multiple would we need to raise taxes to pay for such a program? Raise to 3.8x current taxation levels / raise to 3.1x current taxation levels. All that assumes that basic prices wouldn't rise in an environment where money metaphorically fell like manna. (That $30K would have the same purchasing power as it does today, which seems unlikely.) Adjust the assumptions as you like; IMO, there's no mathematically viable solution to a "living wage before the first hour of work".
- JulianMorrison 9y agoA living wage can be defined as: enough money in the particular location to rent an apartment suitable for human habitation, pay all necessary bills for heating, water, power, phone etc, eat nutritious if simple food, drink safe water, buy cheap but functional clothes and ordinary groceries, commute to work, and have a little over for leisure. If your locality is barbaric enough to charge money or require insurance for healthcare, that is included too. Automatically tracking for the price of any of the above with no political input permitted. And make it a pull tax system. Tax take = cost of UBI. Tax sources = income, financial transactions, static wealth and savings, land value, job-replacing automation.
- nathanasmith 9y ago>If your locality is barbaric enough to charge money or require insurance for healthcare, that is included too. Eff you, condescending prick. A lecture about "barbarism" from the continent that fought the two most devastating wars of the 20th century and drug the rest of the world into your squabble. spit
- iliketosleep 9y agoThe underlying issue is that these VC backed companies break the law to gain a business advantage and face no real consequences, especially if they are successful. But if individuals and small companies attempt to break these very same laws they get crushed. It's almost as though if you've been to Stanford and are backed by well-connected VC's, you're able to recklessly break the law in the name of "disruptive" technology. But I wouldn't place the blame on these people. It's the whole system, which appears to be getting exponentially more rotten as each day passes.
- GVIrish 9y agoWhat has effectively happened is that VC-backed startups have discovered a weakness in the US legal system. Basically, if you have enough funding and gain enough traction, you can ignore the law with little consequence. There may be pushback eventually but once the startup is big enough they can implore customers to fight the law on their behalf. Established big businesses flout the law in service of profit too, but often they're using lobbyists to get the law bent to their benefit. Whoever has the gold makes the rules as it were.
- amelius 9y ago> The underlying issue is that these VC backed companies break the law to gain a business advantage and face no real consequences You don't even need to break the law to gain a business advantage. Just making a large pile of money can be sufficient to start dominating a market. Take for example Uber-eats. Small restaurant owners suddenly had to give up control over their sales channel to a big player, and are now forced to pay a large monthly fee just to stay in business, where the benefits don't outweigh the costs.
- walterbell 9y agoWhat’s the fee? Can they advertise cheaper options, e.g. include a printed menu with each delivery?
- ben509 9y ago
- zackkatz 9y agoI found the best quote from the article to be the last: > “Horses in Central Park are regulated,” he pointed out. “There’s 150 of them. They make a great living there, the guys on the horse and buggies. Say Uber comes in and says, ‘We want to bring in Uber horses. And we want to add 100,000.’ And let’s see how the market will handle it. We know what’s going to happen. No one will make money. They’re all around Central Park. And now no one can go anywhere because there are now 100,000 horses in Central Park. It would be considered madness to do that. They wouldn’t do it. Yet when it comes to the yellow cab industry, for 50 years all we could have was 13,000 cabs, and then within a year or two we’re going to add 100,000. Let’s see how the market works on that! We know how the market works.”
- tootie 9y agoUber isn't the villain. The TLC regulated yellow cabs into oblivion. $1M for a medallion should have been a warning that they are issuing too few.
- reading-at-work 9y agoI'm genuinely curious, have you taken a cab lately? Can you honestly say you prefer that experience to what Uber or Lyft provides? I understand what that quote is saying, but I feel it's a false equivalency. There are already cars on the road in NYC. It's not like adding 10,000 horses to Central Park. Overall, the regulations on the taxi industry are the reason Uber and Lyft have been so successful - because they skirted the regulations, they were able to provide a much better user experience. We need to take a look at which regulations are actually helpful and which are expensive and unnecessary.
- zackkatz 9y agoI disagree with many of the points made by the article. I just found that last quote to be the one that best summed-up the problem the cabbies find themselves in. I’m a believer in mobility: if life isn’t working in NYC, then perhaps move to another place with fewer drivers and a lower cost of living. Just because you like a place and have roots there doesn’t mean life should be affordable and lovely. Much of human history is the story of leaving one place for another, in search of better living conditions. It seems that they—like publishers were!—are mentally stuck in an old paradigm. Transportation has changed; adapt or move on.
- Feniks 9y agoSure the gig economy sucks for Rhineland model countries. But for the US nothing changes much, no? Healthcare plan, retirement fund, not having to sleep in your car if you lose your job- can't lose entitlements you never had.
- jsemrau 9y agoI am still waiting for an update on Coupland's "Microserfs" for this generation.
- reading-at-work 9y ago"The reign of the all-powerful capitalist class has returned with a vengeance. The job conditions of working men and women, thrust backward, will not improve until they regain the militancy and rebuild the popular organizations that seized power from the capitalists." ... "The ruling capitalists will be as vicious as they were in the past. Nothing enrages the rich more than having to part with a fraction of their obscene wealth. Consumed by greed, rendered numb to human suffering by a life of hedonism and extravagance, devoid of empathy, incapable of self-criticism or self-sacrifice, surrounded by sycophants and leeches who cater to their wishes, appetites and demands, able to use their wealth to ignore the law and destroy critics and opponents, they are among the most repugnant of the human species." ... This article is just individual anecdotes mixed in with rants taken straight out of a socialist recruitment pamphlet. I'm open to different political opinions, but this is just ridiculous. Can anyone really take this seriously? Additionally, I'm not convinced that regulating Uber and Lyft as heavily as we regulate taxi companies is a good idea. Taxis are a very entrenched industry buried in red tape, which is part of why they were so expensive and inconvenient. Uber and Lyft have been so successful because there was a desperate need for a ride-hailing solution that didn't suck.
- jumbopapa 9y agoI agree. The whole article is basically saying that it's unfair that they have competition now. Sure, cab drivers may not be making as good of a living as before, but in general everyone else has gained a lot in regards to lower fares.
- zdw 9y agoSeeing as every Uber and Lyft ride was (and still is?) subsidized by investor money, Cab vs App was never a fair competition. Replacing one problematic system with another that rearranges and changes what the problems are isn't always a net win. Assuming that any capitalist enterprise's goals will align with and optimize for the long term general health of society is frankly ludicrous.
- reading-at-work 9y ago
- tootie 9y agoThis is a massive collision of laissez-faire crushing a command economy. Taxis in NYC were overregulated to the point that government was fixing supply to a specific number. Car services were unregulated to the point that they could charge whatever and hire whoever and drive whatever. The TLC should have eased off years ago.
- kevin_thibedeau 9y agoOn the other hand now we have a glut of black cars clogging the roads. I drove in the city during the last storm and it was glorious with all the Ubers off the streets.
- aurelien 9y agoThe Pet economy have already started ;-)
- cableshaft 9y agoPet economy? Maybe it's time to investigate being a Pet Detective again. Might need to rewatch the training videos.
- norikki 9y ago>inhumane labor conditions that characterized the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hmm, I wonder what led to a labor market that allowed for those working conditions that ended in the early 20th century and returned in the late 20th century...
- thedoops 9y agoThe gig economy has barely begun. It won't be in full force till I can see quest/gig markers in mixed reality. Ironically I think to implement a gig economy to this extent we'll have solved the problem of merit to the point money is much less influential. It could very well reverse the tide of egregious wealth inequality. The challenge is to build systems which can securely aggregate data on a person's subject matter expertise. The better we can estimate categorical competence the better we can make opportunities visible.
- vinceguidry 9y agoIn 1575 the Danish king gave Tycho Brahe an island and funding for an observatory in order to keep him in Denmark. This transformed the land from a Crown property to a feudal domain, of which Brahe was the lord. Tycho took control of agricultural planning, requiring the peasants to cultivate twice as much as they had done before, and he also exacted corvée labor from the peasants for the construction of his new castle. The peasants complained about Brahe's excessive taxation and took him to court. The court established Tycho's right to levy taxes and labor, and the result was a contract detailing the mutual obligations of lord and peasants on the island. Source Wikipedia Serfs have rights under the law. Gig workers have none. The only thing they can do in order to earn rights is to sue to be treated as an employee. The article gets it wrong. Traditional employment is an evolution on the master-serf relationship. Gig employment is lower status, akin to wandering laborers with no land or family. Gig workers wish they could be serfs.
- deft 9y agoDefinitely. Many modern workers are in worse standing than serfs or slaves. At least they had something to fall back on a protection.
- zanny 9y agoAnother thing to remember is that serfs and slaves had large collective families of blood and coworkers. You might work oppressive hours and suffer for it, but you aren't doing it alone. Most gig workers are going to job to job in isolation because they don't want to be homeless. They always live with other people, but its not a relatable cohabitation and they arne't working together to ease one anothers burdens. Its a rat race designed to abuse and exhaust its participants while keeping them isolated and vulnerable to the exploitation.
- deft 9y agoBeyond that the exploitation actually increases as people get more desperate. Lack of education on how to manage money etc. leads to people spending more money in these gig jobs than they could ever make back. Uber is a good example, most drivers are unprofitable.
- jillesvangurp 9y agoHow can you write an article like this without bringing up self driving cars? The end game for Uber is to get drivers out of the loop completely. So, this is just a temporary problem. It's going to get a whole lot worse if your plan in life is to drive vehicles around to make money. This is not about the gig economy but simply about a lot of jobs becoming commodities before being automated away completely. Anyone with decent navigation solution in their car can compete with whatever awesome skills this medallion used to represent in terms of geographical knowledge. It's an outdated concept that dates back to the days that actually taxis were horse & carriage and it was kind of helpful to have some guarantees that the driver knew where to go. Not a thing any more.
- Lavery 9y agoPeople constantly cite self-driving cars as Uber's salvation, but never really seem to think through the implication. Hypothetically, let's say that self-driving cars are invented next year. Necessarily, these will start in high-end vehicles (as nearly all new car features do) before getting rolled out to the broader ecosystem. Now if you're Uber you face one of two choices: 1) You enter into perhaps the most capital-intensive business of all time and buy a fleet of these new self-driving cars. This would be a humongous cash raise; NYC alone would likely need $1B in vehicles to match current coverage levels. You'd also need service and maintenance facilities (or pay for someone else to handle it) 2) You wait for enough of these vehicles to be bought by consumers to create a ride share network akin to the current one, except without the drivers Option 1 is likely a non-starter. Uber-style businesses are popular with investors precisely because they avoid this business model. Buying the vehicles and facilities to maintain current US coverage would probably run $100B or more. That's not really feasible. Option 2 saves Uber from that awful capital raise, but means they're waiting for self-driving cars to reach high enough saturation within the broader vehicle fleet that they can use as rideshares during owners idle periods. Based on what Google suggests for a typical car upgrade cycle, this would be 5 years or more. It also probably doesn't improve their margins enormously, because they're still licensing the car from an owner who will demand a cut of fares (whether it be directly or as an hourly lease fee). The assumption is that fee is materially lower than what drivers want for their car and time, but there's no reason to believe that's true (especially given, as many studies have suggested, drivers in most markets currently lose money on a per-mile basis). During the initial period of self-driving adoption, owners fees will be higher, as there are fewer of these vehicles available and owners will have better bargaining power via their scarcity. But while Uber waits for adoption in scenario 2, their first-mover advantage in rideshare erodes. If you're GM or Mercedes, this looks like a pretty high-margin business, and it looks really tempting to use the self-driving tech you're already putting into these vehicles to spin-up a competitor, and right now there's nothing on the books saying you can't simply lock Uber out of it. Long-term, that's my expectation: that self-driving cars will exist and Uber will die to competition from OEMs (or some kind of alliance between OEMs and Waymo). [e]fixed some formatting.
- coldtea 9y ago>* A 65-year-old New York City cab driver from Queens, Nicanor Ochisor, hanged himself in his garage March 16, saying in a note he left behind that the ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft had made it impossible for him to make a living. It was the fourth suicide by a cab driver in New York in the last four months, including one Feb. 5 in which livery driver Douglas Schifter, 61, killed himself with a shotgun outside City Hall.* These people needed to embrace change, reinvent themselves, and adapt to the new economy /s
- vinniejames 9y agoI mostly agree with the sentiment of the article. However, it's a shame for its entire focus to be on the cab industry. Driverless cars are coming, and coming soon, those cab driver hours could likely be cut to zero. Unfortunately, the economy changes and people need to adapt. The horse shoeing industry took the same toll when then car was invented. That's not to say the article doesn't have merit. There are a ton of other industries ripe for disruption by the gig economy. Platform providers need to think deeply about how this could affect the lives of those relying on them for work. Hopefully, going so far as to ensure a decent live wage, and plausible options for health and other benefits. The internet was partially built to facilitate these types of working relationships. It is up to us to define how these relationships should play out in practice, to ensure everyone involved is able to live an acceptable quality of life.
- thisisit 9y agoIMO, isn't "The Gig Economy" the new term for "Temp Jobs" instead?
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoIn a way, but with even less job guarantees; temp jobs (as far as I remember them from summer jobs) were full days at least, often even full seasons if you wanted it. Gig economy is entirely dependent on demand for e.g. rides, and pay is not based on an hourly rate but on however much competition you have at any given time. Also temp jobs give worker rights, insurances, health and safety regulations, etc; gig economy does not, risks are entirely for the driver. I mean what does Uber etc do when a driver gets into an accident during a ride? Outside of a ride? If it was a taxi company, insurance would kick in and there'd be no problem. In the gig economy, the risk is entirely for the driver.
- DoreenMichele 9y agoIt does not have to be this way. Gig work allowed me access to earned income under circumstances where a regular job would have been impossible. It helped empower me to start solving what should have been unsolvable problems. HN is a gathering place for people who start businesses. Yes, we need a remedy for the current abuses. But whatever Uber or Lyft or other existing companies are doing, you can be the architect of a better future by starting a company and not being a greedy bastard who feels they need billions while entry level employees don't make enough to support themselves. The other thing that would help would be if we developed some guidelines for gig work done right. Another thing that could help would be advocacy groups or informational sources. I do my part by blogging about gig work that has the potential to become a middle class income and promoting businesses that do this well and are not tyrant overlords. It's a small thing and I don't have much reach. But we can choose to foster the success of gig businesses that treat workers well instead of merely labeling gig work the new serfdom and essentially assuming it cannot be otherwise. Given my positive experience of gig work, I hate seeing the issue framed this way. I feel it throws the baby out with the bath water.
- Micrococonut 9y agoMaybe people should increase their human capital by perhaps developing some sort of valuable skill. The fact is their skills are practically worthless because almost every adult can do what they do. Instead of crying that their so-easy-a-caveman-could-do-it job driving a car isn't making them enough money, they should do something else that generates more value and thus pays them more.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y agoHad uBlock off, and saw an AD for Lyft in this article. :D
- stillsut 9y agoUber is losing $1B of shareholder capital every quarter to subsidize driver wages above rider revenue. A tax on capital, distributed to labor, no?