10 ms·

Despite the loaded exploitation rhetoric in the article, if competitors can come into the market that is better for the workers, that’s great. And if it raises

Despite the loaded exploitation rhetoric in the article, if competitors can come into the market that is better for the workers, that’s great. And if it raises the standards for the privately owned apps, that’s even better. This seems like a win all around.

rmbryan 7y ago
exploration =?> exploitation
- jasonlfunk 7y ago
  Yes. Edited.
ptah 7y ago
what if it makes it impossible for the "privately owned" apps to compete and wipes them out completely?
- jasonlfunk 7y ago
  Why would that be a problem?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- throwaway_tech 7y ago
  Then that is the best case scenario. Let the exploitative founders and VCs test the market and find fit...then let the workers organize and steal their lunch.
  - rubinelli 7y ago
    An economist would say that customers and workers are capturing most of the value of the transaction, so that would be close to optimal.
- coldtea 7y ago
  Then we might have found a way to solve most of humanity's problems!
- M2Ys4U 7y ago
  Job done
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  That is as much of a problem in itself as co-ops or literal cottage industries not being competitive with dedicated workforces. Sucks to be them but not a true problem to the economy overall. If they can't compete with their advantages maybe they shouldn't be in that business. Just being able to do something efficiently isn't an abuse.
- captainbland 7y ago
  Net gain for humanity
- danShumway 7y ago
  Let me rephrase that question in terms of software -- what happens if someone develops an Open Source product that works better than the proprietary alternative, and the proprietary alternatives get wiped out entirely? The short answer is that for-profit, privatized entities should not be privileged in competition. Community owned solutions, non-profit solutions, naturally occurring public alternatives to products, worker-owned and volunteer-maintained solutions, and so on -- these efforts are no less legitimate than a traditional Capitalist solution. If they produce better results than a VC-backed or privatized product, then they deserve to win. In my mind, the difference between a free market and Capitalism is that a free market is OK with Capitalists losing sometimes. It's good for businesses to compete not only with each other, but also with forces and coalitions outside of traditional markets. And worker-owned businesses aren't even that radical of an idea -- they're just a different way to manage the business and distribute profits. Open Source and nonprofits are much farther outside of traditional Capitalist markets than a worker-owned business is. I'm all for efforts like this.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    All new businesses start out as purely worker-owned. Some of them just find it convenient to sell shares of the business (equity) in exchange for capital, but this need not apply to everyone. Indeed, the typical "app"-driven business has little reason to take any outside capital at all.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    > what happens if someone develops an Open Source product that works better than the proprietary alternative, and the proprietary alternatives get wiped out entirely? Well, we know what happens. Consider the compiler business. In the 80's, compilers cost real money. Today, compilers are free and are far better. Although in the 80's I once counted 30 independent C compiler vendors. Those companies all dwindled away one by one.
Nasrudith 7y ago
Yeah - it would be a logical extension of disrupting gatekeepers in an efficient market. Also kind of obvious in retrospect when gig-workers or contractors require their own tools that they would be in a good position to subsitute for the rest of the company "chain". That makes them mobile and we already saw "multiapp" gig workers. Of course the hard part is that owing to mindshare these markets tend strongly towards winner takes most.
wffurr 7y ago
To add some data to the "exploitation" argument, consider this: “Imagine developing a company specifically to take advantage of people’s ignorance of how expensive it really is to drive their own car. What would this company look like?“ (the answer is of course that it would look like very much like Uber or any other ridesharing company) https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2017/11/22/mr-money-mustache-uber-driver/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2017/11/22/mr-money-mustache...
- frockington1 7y ago
  This seems like a fault by the individual being 'exploited'. I don't think it is the job of a corporation to run an a cost-benefit analysis tailored for watch individual. There is also no obligation to continue driving, so if the drivers cost-benefit isn't what they thought they can always find something else
  - vernie 7y ago
    I'm guessing you love the way healthcare currently works in US. So many choices! Who doesn't love a combinatorial explosion?
    - frockington1 7y ago
      I'm not as opposed to most people. I certainly enjoy all of the advances we've had in recent history. I do hate the government waster and subsidizing of the uninsured. If we could get rid of those we could mute many of the burdensome combinations
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        It's not often you find someone whose criticism of American healthcare is "it's not mean enough yet".
      - vernie 7y ago
        Respect.
thulecitizen 7y ago
Are you serious with 'loaded exploitation rhetoric'? Consumer marketplace apps are black-boxes which completely disregard all the workers rights battles of our ancestors. To not see this is to put too much trust in digital tech as a magic fix to all problems.
- patrickaljord 7y ago
  > the workers rights battles of our ancestors. The consequence of these battles is that at least for low skill workers, all these jobs were shipped abroad (or just disappeared) where none of these rights exist. Creating huge unemployment, so now low skill workers have rights but no jobs and therefor make even less. The fact that people are willing to take these jobs is a sign that low skill workers are ok with having lower wages and less benefits if this means getting a job and a better pay. We could ban all these jobs of course but that would not give these low skill workers rights, it would just make them unemployed again.
  - theaeolist 7y ago
    This general point does not apply to cleaners, drivers, and most of the gig economy.
    - patrickaljord 7y ago
      It does apply, that's why I said: > all these jobs were shipped abroad (or just disappeared) If we start imposing heavy regulation on the gig economy, it will not be viable anymore, these companies will need to shut down and those jobs will disappear. As for jobs like cleaners or waitress, companies will hire much less of them to the strict minimum. Jobs that would have existed would disappear too which is why you get long wait and horrible service in French restaurants for example where minimum wage and employee tax are super high even though France was known to invent the saying "the customer is king" and offering top tier commercial service, not anymore. What I'm saying is that making the cost of work and hiring more expensive artificially always ends up in job losses and worse quality service. When I say artificially I mean because of government imposition, not market force (which is usually due to growth so not an issue).

rmbryan 7y ago

exploration =?> exploitation

jasonlfunk 7y ago
Yes. Edited.

ptah 7y ago

what if it makes it impossible for the "privately owned" apps to compete and wipes them out completely?

jasonlfunk 7y ago
Why would that be a problem?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
throwaway_tech 7y ago
Then that is the best case scenario. Let the exploitative founders and VCs test the market and find fit...then let the workers organize and steal their lunch.
- rubinelli 7y ago
  An economist would say that customers and workers are capturing most of the value of the transaction, so that would be close to optimal.
coldtea 7y ago
Then we might have found a way to solve most of humanity's problems!
M2Ys4U 7y ago
Job done
Nasrudith 7y ago
That is as much of a problem in itself as co-ops or literal cottage industries not being competitive with dedicated workforces. Sucks to be them but not a true problem to the economy overall. If they can't compete with their advantages maybe they shouldn't be in that business. Just being able to do something efficiently isn't an abuse.
captainbland 7y ago
Net gain for humanity
danShumway 7y ago
Let me rephrase that question in terms of software -- what happens if someone develops an Open Source product that works better than the proprietary alternative, and the proprietary alternatives get wiped out entirely? The short answer is that for-profit, privatized entities should not be privileged in competition. Community owned solutions, non-profit solutions, naturally occurring public alternatives to products, worker-owned and volunteer-maintained solutions, and so on -- these efforts are no less legitimate than a traditional Capitalist solution. If they produce better results than a VC-backed or privatized product, then they deserve to win. In my mind, the difference between a free market and Capitalism is that a free market is OK with Capitalists losing sometimes. It's good for businesses to compete not only with each other, but also with forces and coalitions outside of traditional markets. And worker-owned businesses aren't even that radical of an idea -- they're just a different way to manage the business and distribute profits. Open Source and nonprofits are much farther outside of traditional Capitalist markets than a worker-owned business is. I'm all for efforts like this.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  All new businesses start out as purely worker-owned. Some of them just find it convenient to sell shares of the business (equity) in exchange for capital, but this need not apply to everyone. Indeed, the typical "app"-driven business has little reason to take any outside capital at all.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  > what happens if someone develops an Open Source product that works better than the proprietary alternative, and the proprietary alternatives get wiped out entirely? Well, we know what happens. Consider the compiler business. In the 80's, compilers cost real money. Today, compilers are free and are far better. Although in the 80's I once counted 30 independent C compiler vendors. Those companies all dwindled away one by one.

Nasrudith 7y ago

Yeah - it would be a logical extension of disrupting gatekeepers in an efficient market. Also kind of obvious in retrospect when gig-workers or contractors require their own tools that they would be in a good position to subsitute for the rest of the company "chain". That makes them mobile and we already saw "multiapp" gig workers. Of course the hard part is that owing to mindshare these markets tend strongly towards winner takes most.

wffurr 7y ago

To add some data to the "exploitation" argument, consider this: “Imagine developing a company specifically to take advantage of people’s ignorance of how expensive it really is to drive their own car. What would this company look like?“ (the answer is of course that it would look like very much like Uber or any other ridesharing company) https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2017/11/22/mr-money-mustache-uber-driver/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2017/11/22/mr-money-mustache...

frockington1 7y ago
This seems like a fault by the individual being 'exploited'. I don't think it is the job of a corporation to run an a cost-benefit analysis tailored for watch individual. There is also no obligation to continue driving, so if the drivers cost-benefit isn't what they thought they can always find something else
- vernie 7y ago
  I'm guessing you love the way healthcare currently works in US. So many choices! Who doesn't love a combinatorial explosion?
  - frockington1 7y ago
    I'm not as opposed to most people. I certainly enjoy all of the advances we've had in recent history. I do hate the government waster and subsidizing of the uninsured. If we could get rid of those we could mute many of the burdensome combinations
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      It's not often you find someone whose criticism of American healthcare is "it's not mean enough yet".
    - vernie 7y ago
      Respect.

thulecitizen 7y ago

Are you serious with 'loaded exploitation rhetoric'? Consumer marketplace apps are black-boxes which completely disregard all the workers rights battles of our ancestors. To not see this is to put too much trust in digital tech as a magic fix to all problems.

patrickaljord 7y ago
> the workers rights battles of our ancestors. The consequence of these battles is that at least for low skill workers, all these jobs were shipped abroad (or just disappeared) where none of these rights exist. Creating huge unemployment, so now low skill workers have rights but no jobs and therefor make even less. The fact that people are willing to take these jobs is a sign that low skill workers are ok with having lower wages and less benefits if this means getting a job and a better pay. We could ban all these jobs of course but that would not give these low skill workers rights, it would just make them unemployed again.
- theaeolist 7y ago
  This general point does not apply to cleaners, drivers, and most of the gig economy.
  - patrickaljord 7y ago
    It does apply, that's why I said: > all these jobs were shipped abroad (or just disappeared) If we start imposing heavy regulation on the gig economy, it will not be viable anymore, these companies will need to shut down and those jobs will disappear. As for jobs like cleaners or waitress, companies will hire much less of them to the strict minimum. Jobs that would have existed would disappear too which is why you get long wait and horrible service in French restaurants for example where minimum wage and employee tax are super high even though France was known to invent the saying "the customer is king" and offering top tier commercial service, not anymore. What I'm saying is that making the cost of work and hiring more expensive artificially always ends up in job losses and worse quality service. When I say artificially I mean because of government imposition, not market force (which is usually due to growth so not an issue).