> The real problem, if you look at it from first principles, is the lack of US government protections/services for all workers. This is so true. If traditional

> The real problem, if you look at it from first principles, is the lack of US government protections/services for all workers. This is so true. If traditional jobs (not gig economy jobs) were better, no one would ever accept a gig economy job. Traditional full-time jobs are required to give healthcare and other expensive benefits (that governments everywhere else provide), so those businesses have cut down on the number of full-time jobs. The real comparison here is between big companies who refuse to offer full-time jobs and instead rely on limiting hours to keep most of their jobs as part-time. People who accept gig economy jobs do so because they can work more hours per week (not artificially held under 39 hours so their company can avoid paying benefits). Generally people are rational actors when it comes to accepting the best employment opportunity, so if we see lots of people accepting gig-economy jobs it means that their other alternatives are worse. That's not a defense of gig-economy jobs but instead points out that this is a problem for all workers and suggests moving to a system that the rest of the world uses to solve the same problem.