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Uber and DoorDash don't rely on the workers just as labor, but also as capital -- the drivers provide the cars. Also, Uber at least doesn't even rely on making

Uber and DoorDash don't rely on the workers just as labor, but also as capital -- the drivers provide the cars. Also, Uber at least doesn't even rely on making money from customers, just raising money from investors. So they're complicated situations and not easy to generalize. > what we will do as a society in response to the inevitability of automation and its ramifications to humanity as a result. We already automated production in the 20th century, "the service economy" is what resulted. As long as people can be prevented from accessing the product, they can be kept working for it.

lawrenceyan 5y ago
What do you see as the primary pathway for people after we automate away the major components of the service economy?
- hooande 5y ago
  it's not possible to automate away all components of the concept of "service". there will always be time consuming or tedious tasks that people will pay other people to do. they likely won't look like anything we can imagine now
motohagiography 5y ago
The framing that Uber and Doordash are exploiting the workers' own capital because workers also supply their own cars completely ignores that the cars were unproductive, sunk cost capital until these platforms arrived, and that people desire flexibility and autonomy, and it was dead weight regulation of monopoly (taxi) licensing that kept these people out of the labour market. People aren't "workers," even if the establishment has defined them into classes of workers and employers as a means to further manage them. Even if gig economy companies were pyramid schemes for investment as you suggest, their redistrbitive function would still be way more efficient than any other scheme. The crux of this view is the belief in and characterization of literally everything as exploitation. It's the axiom in the logic of that idea. People want jobs that provide some balance of economic security, status, and freedom, but if you discover need, desire, and value that creates jobs for them and risk your own capital to grow it, you're exploiting them? Personally, I'd reject that premise.
- DarylZero 5y ago
  > The framing that Uber and Doordash are exploiting the workers' own capital Where did you get any such "framing"? I'm saying that, since the capital and labor BOTH are "crowdsourced," you can't analyze it as exemplifying just labor relations. > completely ignores that the cars were unproductive, sunk cost capital until these platforms arrived That's false in general and also a very stupid way of thinking about it. The idea of people making use of their cars as capital is just so commonplace, you have to be actively seeking out stupidity to overlook it.
  - motohagiography 5y ago
    Someone owning a car without using it to generate income, leverage, or opportunity is the definition of unproductive capital rotting in a driveway. The uber for x platforms are market makers, which is about as valuable a service as it gets. The only ones it seems to bother are those who would seek to exploit people politically. The platforms have pernicious pratices, certainly, but the political outrage about the the gig economy has served mainly to discourage competitors from entering the market to make it better. I'd argue the critics of the gig economy are ensconcing the very platforms they're complaining about by threatening the market - and they have never solved a problem they didn't first invent by characterizing everything as exploitation from the outset. This is about par for the course for people who don't solve problems with discovery, technology, or consensus, but rather, invent problems to leverage them politically and add them to the portfolio of things they create rules for and manage. These are not reconcilable world views, but when one is committed to the logic of an idea, I sympathize with how they might interpret inconsistency with it as stupid.
    - DarylZero 5y ago
      > Someone owning a car without using it to generate income The point is you're just _making up_ the "fact" of people not using their cars to generate income. Cars depreciate when you drive them, people recognize their value as capital, the IRS recognizes their value as capital. You're idiotically trying to pretend that they don't count as capital. For no real reason either. Just because you said something stupid before and you can't admit it. > market makers, which is about as valuable a service as it gets LOL!!

lawrenceyan 5y ago

What do you see as the primary pathway for people after we automate away the major components of the service economy?

hooande 5y ago
it's not possible to automate away all components of the concept of "service". there will always be time consuming or tedious tasks that people will pay other people to do. they likely won't look like anything we can imagine now

motohagiography 5y ago

The framing that Uber and Doordash are exploiting the workers' own capital because workers also supply their own cars completely ignores that the cars were unproductive, sunk cost capital until these platforms arrived, and that people desire flexibility and autonomy, and it was dead weight regulation of monopoly (taxi) licensing that kept these people out of the labour market. People aren't "workers," even if the establishment has defined them into classes of workers and employers as a means to further manage them. Even if gig economy companies were pyramid schemes for investment as you suggest, their redistrbitive function would still be way more efficient than any other scheme. The crux of this view is the belief in and characterization of literally everything as exploitation. It's the axiom in the logic of that idea. People want jobs that provide some balance of economic security, status, and freedom, but if you discover need, desire, and value that creates jobs for them and risk your own capital to grow it, you're exploiting them? Personally, I'd reject that premise.

DarylZero 5y ago
> The framing that Uber and Doordash are exploiting the workers' own capital Where did you get any such "framing"? I'm saying that, since the capital and labor BOTH are "crowdsourced," you can't analyze it as exemplifying just labor relations. > completely ignores that the cars were unproductive, sunk cost capital until these platforms arrived That's false in general and also a very stupid way of thinking about it. The idea of people making use of their cars as capital is just so commonplace, you have to be actively seeking out stupidity to overlook it.
- motohagiography 5y ago
  Someone owning a car without using it to generate income, leverage, or opportunity is the definition of unproductive capital rotting in a driveway. The uber for x platforms are market makers, which is about as valuable a service as it gets. The only ones it seems to bother are those who would seek to exploit people politically. The platforms have pernicious pratices, certainly, but the political outrage about the the gig economy has served mainly to discourage competitors from entering the market to make it better. I'd argue the critics of the gig economy are ensconcing the very platforms they're complaining about by threatening the market - and they have never solved a problem they didn't first invent by characterizing everything as exploitation from the outset. This is about par for the course for people who don't solve problems with discovery, technology, or consensus, but rather, invent problems to leverage them politically and add them to the portfolio of things they create rules for and manage. These are not reconcilable world views, but when one is committed to the logic of an idea, I sympathize with how they might interpret inconsistency with it as stupid.
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    > Someone owning a car without using it to generate income The point is you're just _making up_ the "fact" of people not using their cars to generate income. Cars depreciate when you drive them, people recognize their value as capital, the IRS recognizes their value as capital. You're idiotically trying to pretend that they don't count as capital. For no real reason either. Just because you said something stupid before and you can't admit it. > market makers, which is about as valuable a service as it gets LOL!!