6 ms·

The sharing economy overall is a rotten model. Offloading externalities. It did give a kick to the taxi business because they had become overly complacent thoug

The sharing economy overall is a rotten model. Offloading externalities. It did give a kick to the taxi business because they had become overly complacent though so that’s a positive. But I won’t be sad either to see Airbnb and Uber die.

amelius 7y ago
It's not just sharing, but it's platforms. One gatekeeper regulating an entire market of poorly paid workers. Everything from food delivery services to App Stores.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  So the encompassing term would be, I think, gig economy. I can't think of a single gig economy company that wasn't an ethical disaster.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    At the risk of sounding argumentative, I will suggest Textbroker does a pretty good job. http://writepay.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-textbroker-solution.html http://writepay.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-textbroker-solution... I don't think the gig economy has to be an ethical disaster. I'm aware a lot of gig platforms are awful in that regard, but I don't think it simply can't be done well just because it mostly hasn't been done well. "Ninety percent of everything is crap."
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      I wasn't saying gig economy couldn't be done ethically, just that I've never heard of a case where it was. I'll take a look at Textbroker. > "Ninety percent of everything is crap." I never seen that applied to ethics before. I so hope it's wrong...
      - DoreenMichele 7y ago
        I was thinking more in terms of "companies in a new economic model getting some parts of it very wrong." We try a thing, it goes horribly sideways, people freak out over "ethics," which often means large scale, social consequences that weren't necessarily readily apparent before you did the thing.
        TeMPOraL 7y ago
        If you're talking about journalists and bloggers buying into the hype and only noticing problems once things "go horribly sideways", then I agree; it's also fair to point out that second-order consequences are very often not obvious, and only apparent in hindsight. Hell, in my more naive days, I was also bullish on some of those companies, before I started reading about and contemplating the issues that were brought up later on. But the cynical me wants to point out that any particular company doing gig economy/"share" economy/locust economy[0] business has to design and understand their own business model. Many of the ethical issues are already apparent at this stage; when you look at Cost Structure and Revenue Streams segments of your Business Model Canvas, take a stock of regulatory requirements affecting you, you can already what corners you cut and who's going to get a short end of your value proposition stick. So e.g. I do not believe AirBnB was initially aware of the impact their business will have on the housing market, but I'm rather certain all the evil shenanigans Uber pulled were intentional. EDIT: also: I know that I'm being an armchair ethicist here, that it's easy to see the larger picture from a high horse, especially when one doesn't need to use said businesses. But to my defense: doing that is a valid market signal on its own; to the extent I don't deal with businesses I consider ethically challenged, and discourage others from dealing with them, this sends a (however small) signal to the free market that those issues are something that matters to some customers, and are worth competing on. -- [0] - I only now remembered this article, https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust-economy/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust-economy/. Worth pointing out that it was written in 2013, about when the "share economy" hype was at its peak, and everyone wanted to do a startup with this model.
        DoreenMichele 7y ago
    - amelius 7y ago
      There are certainly positive aspects, but I think they are mostly for short-term money problems. The main problem with the gig/platform economy is that in a sense it's the worst of both worlds: those in favor of a laissez-faire economy will see that markets are regulated anyway (not by governments but by corporations); and those in favor of government regulation also lose.
    - ashtonkem 7y ago
      The problem is that for most gig economy companies, the entire point was to shift a large percentage of the risk onto their quasi-employees, so that they could undercut companies that actually paid benefits and right-sized their staff to meet long term demands. The entire premise, for at least most gig-economy companies, was rotten. That doesn’t mean that a company that’s genuinely based around providing consumers access to rarely distributed skills and products is necessarily bad. But it’s got to be the kind of service/product that the company couldn’t offer via traditional staffing methods.
- usrusr 7y ago
  I'm still hoping for those platforms to eventually get displaced by ones run by foundations or coops. Sure, those have a hard time initially competing against platforms powered by infinite greed, but in the end being trustable by the vendor side of platform users should be an unbeatable advantage.
frobozz 7y ago
Calling it "sharing economy" is doublespeak. Most AirBnB hosts and Uber drivers are not just occasionally letting spare space in their homes or picking up strangers who happen to be going the same direction. AirBnB hosts are short-let landlords, same as any other operator of holiday lets. Uber drivers are minicab drivers, same as any other minicab driver. They like to pretend otherwise in an attempt to bypass laws designed for consumer and worker protection.
- vinay427 7y ago
  > Most AirBnB hosts and Uber drivers are not just occasionally letting spare space in their homes I don't believe this is true for Airbnb, both anecdotally and from Airbnb's own statement about NYC: > "87 percent of Airbnb hosts in New York share only the home in which they live.” https://skift.com/2014/02/13/airbnb-in-nyc-the-real-numbers-behind-the-sharing-story/ https://skift.com/2014/02/13/airbnb-in-nyc-the-real-numbers-...
  - dgoldstein0 7y ago
    And the other 13% make up what percent of new York Airbnb stays (for, say, 2019)?
  - ric2b 7y ago
    That's misdirection. 87% of hosts, sure, but what percentage of rentals? Does it matter if there are a lot of accounts that only list a few days a year? Notice that 2/3 of rentals are for entire apartments, the hosts that share their own home clearly can't do that very often.
    - vinay427 7y ago
      I agree. I'm curious why you chose to reply to my comment with this complaint when I was directly responding to the claim, which you quite reasonably view to be "misdirection," in the parent comment.
      - 7y ago

amelius 7y ago

It's not just sharing, but it's platforms. One gatekeeper regulating an entire market of poorly paid workers. Everything from food delivery services to App Stores.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
So the encompassing term would be, I think, gig economy. I can't think of a single gig economy company that wasn't an ethical disaster.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  At the risk of sounding argumentative, I will suggest Textbroker does a pretty good job. http://writepay.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-textbroker-solution.html http://writepay.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-textbroker-solution... I don't think the gig economy has to be an ethical disaster. I'm aware a lot of gig platforms are awful in that regard, but I don't think it simply can't be done well just because it mostly hasn't been done well. "Ninety percent of everything is crap."
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    I wasn't saying gig economy couldn't be done ethically, just that I've never heard of a case where it was. I'll take a look at Textbroker. > "Ninety percent of everything is crap." I never seen that applied to ethics before. I so hope it's wrong...
    - DoreenMichele 7y ago
      I was thinking more in terms of "companies in a new economic model getting some parts of it very wrong." We try a thing, it goes horribly sideways, people freak out over "ethics," which often means large scale, social consequences that weren't necessarily readily apparent before you did the thing.
      - TeMPOraL 7y ago
        If you're talking about journalists and bloggers buying into the hype and only noticing problems once things "go horribly sideways", then I agree; it's also fair to point out that second-order consequences are very often not obvious, and only apparent in hindsight. Hell, in my more naive days, I was also bullish on some of those companies, before I started reading about and contemplating the issues that were brought up later on. But the cynical me wants to point out that any particular company doing gig economy/"share" economy/locust economy[0] business has to design and understand their own business model. Many of the ethical issues are already apparent at this stage; when you look at Cost Structure and Revenue Streams segments of your Business Model Canvas, take a stock of regulatory requirements affecting you, you can already what corners you cut and who's going to get a short end of your value proposition stick. So e.g. I do not believe AirBnB was initially aware of the impact their business will have on the housing market, but I'm rather certain all the evil shenanigans Uber pulled were intentional. EDIT: also: I know that I'm being an armchair ethicist here, that it's easy to see the larger picture from a high horse, especially when one doesn't need to use said businesses. But to my defense: doing that is a valid market signal on its own; to the extent I don't deal with businesses I consider ethically challenged, and discourage others from dealing with them, this sends a (however small) signal to the free market that those issues are something that matters to some customers, and are worth competing on. -- [0] - I only now remembered this article, https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust-economy/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust-economy/. Worth pointing out that it was written in 2013, about when the "share economy" hype was at its peak, and everyone wanted to do a startup with this model.
        DoreenMichele 7y ago
  - amelius 7y ago
    There are certainly positive aspects, but I think they are mostly for short-term money problems. The main problem with the gig/platform economy is that in a sense it's the worst of both worlds: those in favor of a laissez-faire economy will see that markets are regulated anyway (not by governments but by corporations); and those in favor of government regulation also lose.
  - ashtonkem 7y ago
    The problem is that for most gig economy companies, the entire point was to shift a large percentage of the risk onto their quasi-employees, so that they could undercut companies that actually paid benefits and right-sized their staff to meet long term demands. The entire premise, for at least most gig-economy companies, was rotten. That doesn’t mean that a company that’s genuinely based around providing consumers access to rarely distributed skills and products is necessarily bad. But it’s got to be the kind of service/product that the company couldn’t offer via traditional staffing methods.
usrusr 7y ago
I'm still hoping for those platforms to eventually get displaced by ones run by foundations or coops. Sure, those have a hard time initially competing against platforms powered by infinite greed, but in the end being trustable by the vendor side of platform users should be an unbeatable advantage.

frobozz 7y ago

Calling it "sharing economy" is doublespeak. Most AirBnB hosts and Uber drivers are not just occasionally letting spare space in their homes or picking up strangers who happen to be going the same direction. AirBnB hosts are short-let landlords, same as any other operator of holiday lets. Uber drivers are minicab drivers, same as any other minicab driver. They like to pretend otherwise in an attempt to bypass laws designed for consumer and worker protection.

vinay427 7y ago
> Most AirBnB hosts and Uber drivers are not just occasionally letting spare space in their homes I don't believe this is true for Airbnb, both anecdotally and from Airbnb's own statement about NYC: > "87 percent of Airbnb hosts in New York share only the home in which they live.” https://skift.com/2014/02/13/airbnb-in-nyc-the-real-numbers-behind-the-sharing-story/ https://skift.com/2014/02/13/airbnb-in-nyc-the-real-numbers-...
- dgoldstein0 7y ago
  And the other 13% make up what percent of new York Airbnb stays (for, say, 2019)?
- ric2b 7y ago
  That's misdirection. 87% of hosts, sure, but what percentage of rentals? Does it matter if there are a lot of accounts that only list a few days a year? Notice that 2/3 of rentals are for entire apartments, the hosts that share their own home clearly can't do that very often.
  - vinay427 7y ago
    I agree. I'm curious why you chose to reply to my comment with this complaint when I was directly responding to the claim, which you quite reasonably view to be "misdirection," in the parent comment.
    - 7y ago