I main-splain the reason why they're not 'picking up real jobs' as that those jobs come with commitments. Even if it's not "you must work these hours" - it's "

I main-splain the reason why they're not 'picking up real jobs' as that those jobs come with commitments. Even if it's not "you must work these hours" - it's "my books need to be ready at the end of the month". I think maybe I can identify with your brother. In his "proxy-defense" - well even if I don't get that contract, I can stay in bed. I have a decently paying job and am eternally bemused by the fluctuations between "this is critical and I must work into the night and weekends" and the converse "I've been here all week and don't feel I've achieved anything of value" When I idly consider the 'next step' for gig-work, it would be to break it out of the company domain/app. The article mentioned people with a bunch of T-shirts and their associated overhead of deciding which one to wear/app-to-load. e.g. To take this to the logical extreme, you'd sign up with "goldcd-hustle", tell me what you were prepared to do, punch in your skills, upload your car details/overheads, tell me where you were with GPS blah blah. Then when you press the "I want to work" button, you'd get given the most beneficial job. The problem with being an Uber driver is that it's all built around the best interests of Uber - and it's a piss-poor example of actual arbitrage.