6 ms·

Not sure. Luddites knew a craft; most of the people ‘employed’ in the gig economy lack knowledge and real skills.

by dotcoma 3y ago

femiagbabiaka 3y ago
Citation needed.
- dotcoma 3y ago
  I wish I could help you. Citation needed regarding what? That Luddites knew a craft? I thought this was known and/or accepted. The revolt was largely against new machines that delivered lower quality products at a much lower cost, with workers being paid a fraction of what they were used to. Or regarding that most gig economy workers don’t have qualifications? I thought this, too, was accepted. Not many are SWEs earning 1k a day or more. Most deliver you pizza or stand in line so you can have the newest iPhone on day-1. There’s even a website called TaskRabbit. It doesn’t sound like gigs offered there are very qualified.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    You seem to live in quite a bubble. Working in the gig economy is more about a lack of options than a lack of qualification. And the Luddite movemebr was as much about working condition as it was about pay, e.g. having children do maintenance on running machinery being maimed and crippled. Luddites were no backward people, they wanted a livelihood, one the lost during the industrial revolution. Maybe that is too hard to research and understand, when you are so qualified and busy making 1k per day as a software whatever.
    - dotcoma 3y ago
      If you are referring to me, I am not a software engineer and I make nowhere close to 1k a day. Nor do I think Luddites were backward people — not at all. On the contrary, I think that, mutatis mutandis, we could learn quite a bit from their struggle.
jampekka 3y ago
Or their knowledge and real skills don't get used because we've decided they are better exploited as servants for overpaid paper pushers, like us programmers, who can't bother to even move themselves to a restaurant.
- gumballindie 3y ago
  > overpaid paper pushers Oh don’t worry, that’s changing.
  - jampekka 3y ago
    Yep. Sooner or later capital makes sure that working doesn't pay off.
    - eru 3y ago
      That hasn't happened so far ever. What makes you think it will happen soon?
      - jampekka 3y ago
        Has happened many times before and is happening again right now. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-growth/a-new-look-at-the-declining-labor-share-of-income-in-the-united-states https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-gr...
        eru 3y ago
        > The labor share of income in 35 advanced economies fell from around 54 percent in 1980 to 50.5 percent in 2014. 3.5% in 34 years is not exactly something to get all luddite about. Also keep in mind, that it's not the capital share that's expanding at the expense of labour. It's the share that goes to land that's taking from labour. The capital share is relatively stable. (Alas, few apart from the Georgists care about differentiating between land and capital.)
franga2000 3y ago
The equivalent of the Luddites here aren't all the gig workers, they're the people who are "rising up" against gig work. Many of them are now themselves gig workers because they had nowhere else to go (like former taxi drivers driving for Uber now), but their skills and training are no longer valued and they get the same inhumane wage as those who have none. Meanwhile the rest of us get lower quality for a lower price and no ability to pay more if we want.
- eru 3y ago
  You can hire a driver without using Uber. You can pay more for better service. (And you can even give Uber more money to get better service, within some limits.)
  - al_borland 3y ago
    You can pay Uber for a nicer class of car, service seems like it would always be a roll of the dice, as that is up to the personality of the driver. Even when going with the cheapest option on Uber, getting a nicer car is luck of the draw. On my last weekend trip where I took a few Ubers, I always picked the cheapest option, and we had 3 new Teslas, Model S, X, and Y, and a new Benz. No beat up old Toyotas. I’ve had people pick me up in luxury SUVs who mention they are Uber Black, but took my fare because I was close, it wasn’t any better than an UberX with a friendly driver. I’d be curious to know how many people actually pay for things like Uber Black. How long is someone going to be in the car where it’s really worth paying 2-4x the price? It seems like it’s more of a status or ego thing.
  - franga2000 3y ago
    Outside of the super high end, the middle ground is simply not available any more where I live. Even the old taxi companies, under pressure from our regional Uber-copycat, have switched to an app-only, quantity-over-quality, throughput-focused model. I can't call and book a ride at a specific time in advance (this used to be possible, of course with a waiting fee), the drivers will no longer let us make detours or stops on the way because their next ride is already booked by the time they pick you up, they drive like maniacs to hit their time targets, all while constantly fiddling with the three phones stuck to their dashboard viewing and accepting rides from the three platforms they "work for". All of this for a 20% decrease in fees (which started rising back up the moment a near-monopoly was established) and having them "all in one app", even though there are now 3 "all in one" platforms, each with their own set of quirks that you need to remember just like we had to remember for the different taxi companies before.
randomdata 3y ago
Yet the canonical example of gig work is the Uber driver – a job that requires a tremendous amount of knowledge and skill. The trouble, economically, is that most people have had a vested interest in acquiring that particular knowledge and skill, making it common, and thus, by the properties of supply and demand, not terribly valuable.
- brandall10 3y ago
  I'm having trouble parsing this comment... if facetious not following the point. If not, what is the knowledge and skill outside of having a driver's license and the ability to work a smartphone?
  - randomdata 3y ago
    What are you asking, exactly? Driving clearly requires a lot of knowledge and skill, from the workings of vehicles to the rules of the road, and a lot of practice to be able to develop the skill necessary to move the vehicle around in the framework. Nobody is born able to drive and nowadays most jurisdictions require a lengthy apprenticeship under another experienced driver before one is able to move into being licensed to drive on their own accord because history has proven that it takes a long time to develop the necessary skills. Even then, it is questionable if drivers are skilled enough, but such is life. Indeed, it is a common skill[1], at least in car-centric North America where there has been a strong incentive for all to learn those skills. That makes it not particularly valuable to offer as a service. Why pay someone to do work you can, in most cases, just as easily do yourself? It has to be quite cheap for you to consider it. But that's something else entirely. [1] Albeit a dwindling one. While ~85% of American adults have their driver's license, only ~60% of 18-year-olds do, down from ~80% in the 1980s. The youth today are backing away from obtaining this particular skill as compared to the past.
    - HPsquared 3y ago
      Speaking English (or any other language) is an even bigger, more complex skill than driving - and we take it for granted too. Basic electrical service in houses is the result of a huge effort to build infrastructure. There are many examples of these "complex but ubiquitous" resources.
hatenberg 3y ago
Jesus that’s a peak techbro comment that couldn’t be more tone deaf. You will find out what it means to have your valuable skills replaced by technology soon enough - just as for example translators have found out.
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
pylua 3y ago
I would argue taxi driving was a craft before it got commodified. Being a good taxi driver especially in a big city required specialized knowledge of the city. Before cars also got more common driving skills were more of a craft. I wonder if the day will come where this happens to lawyers and doctors with ai. The main point is that the bar is constantly rising and most people can’t stay above it.

Not sure. Luddites knew a craft; most of the people ‘employed’ in the gig economy lack knowledge and real skills.

femiagbabiaka 3y ago

Citation needed.

dotcoma 3y ago
I wish I could help you. Citation needed regarding what? That Luddites knew a craft? I thought this was known and/or accepted. The revolt was largely against new machines that delivered lower quality products at a much lower cost, with workers being paid a fraction of what they were used to. Or regarding that most gig economy workers don’t have qualifications? I thought this, too, was accepted. Not many are SWEs earning 1k a day or more. Most deliver you pizza or stand in line so you can have the newest iPhone on day-1. There’s even a website called TaskRabbit. It doesn’t sound like gigs offered there are very qualified.
- hef19898 3y ago
  You seem to live in quite a bubble. Working in the gig economy is more about a lack of options than a lack of qualification. And the Luddite movemebr was as much about working condition as it was about pay, e.g. having children do maintenance on running machinery being maimed and crippled. Luddites were no backward people, they wanted a livelihood, one the lost during the industrial revolution. Maybe that is too hard to research and understand, when you are so qualified and busy making 1k per day as a software whatever.
  - dotcoma 3y ago
    If you are referring to me, I am not a software engineer and I make nowhere close to 1k a day. Nor do I think Luddites were backward people — not at all. On the contrary, I think that, mutatis mutandis, we could learn quite a bit from their struggle.

jampekka 3y ago

Or their knowledge and real skills don't get used because we've decided they are better exploited as servants for overpaid paper pushers, like us programmers, who can't bother to even move themselves to a restaurant.

gumballindie 3y ago
> overpaid paper pushers Oh don’t worry, that’s changing.
- jampekka 3y ago
  Yep. Sooner or later capital makes sure that working doesn't pay off.
  - eru 3y ago
    That hasn't happened so far ever. What makes you think it will happen soon?
    - jampekka 3y ago
      Has happened many times before and is happening again right now. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-growth/a-new-look-at-the-declining-labor-share-of-income-in-the-united-states https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-gr...
      - eru 3y ago
        > The labor share of income in 35 advanced economies fell from around 54 percent in 1980 to 50.5 percent in 2014. 3.5% in 34 years is not exactly something to get all luddite about. Also keep in mind, that it's not the capital share that's expanding at the expense of labour. It's the share that goes to land that's taking from labour. The capital share is relatively stable. (Alas, few apart from the Georgists care about differentiating between land and capital.)

franga2000 3y ago

The equivalent of the Luddites here aren't all the gig workers, they're the people who are "rising up" against gig work. Many of them are now themselves gig workers because they had nowhere else to go (like former taxi drivers driving for Uber now), but their skills and training are no longer valued and they get the same inhumane wage as those who have none. Meanwhile the rest of us get lower quality for a lower price and no ability to pay more if we want.

eru 3y ago
You can hire a driver without using Uber. You can pay more for better service. (And you can even give Uber more money to get better service, within some limits.)
- al_borland 3y ago
  You can pay Uber for a nicer class of car, service seems like it would always be a roll of the dice, as that is up to the personality of the driver. Even when going with the cheapest option on Uber, getting a nicer car is luck of the draw. On my last weekend trip where I took a few Ubers, I always picked the cheapest option, and we had 3 new Teslas, Model S, X, and Y, and a new Benz. No beat up old Toyotas. I’ve had people pick me up in luxury SUVs who mention they are Uber Black, but took my fare because I was close, it wasn’t any better than an UberX with a friendly driver. I’d be curious to know how many people actually pay for things like Uber Black. How long is someone going to be in the car where it’s really worth paying 2-4x the price? It seems like it’s more of a status or ego thing.
- franga2000 3y ago
  Outside of the super high end, the middle ground is simply not available any more where I live. Even the old taxi companies, under pressure from our regional Uber-copycat, have switched to an app-only, quantity-over-quality, throughput-focused model. I can't call and book a ride at a specific time in advance (this used to be possible, of course with a waiting fee), the drivers will no longer let us make detours or stops on the way because their next ride is already booked by the time they pick you up, they drive like maniacs to hit their time targets, all while constantly fiddling with the three phones stuck to their dashboard viewing and accepting rides from the three platforms they "work for". All of this for a 20% decrease in fees (which started rising back up the moment a near-monopoly was established) and having them "all in one app", even though there are now 3 "all in one" platforms, each with their own set of quirks that you need to remember just like we had to remember for the different taxi companies before.

randomdata 3y ago

Yet the canonical example of gig work is the Uber driver – a job that requires a tremendous amount of knowledge and skill. The trouble, economically, is that most people have had a vested interest in acquiring that particular knowledge and skill, making it common, and thus, by the properties of supply and demand, not terribly valuable.

brandall10 3y ago
I'm having trouble parsing this comment... if facetious not following the point. If not, what is the knowledge and skill outside of having a driver's license and the ability to work a smartphone?
- randomdata 3y ago
  What are you asking, exactly? Driving clearly requires a lot of knowledge and skill, from the workings of vehicles to the rules of the road, and a lot of practice to be able to develop the skill necessary to move the vehicle around in the framework. Nobody is born able to drive and nowadays most jurisdictions require a lengthy apprenticeship under another experienced driver before one is able to move into being licensed to drive on their own accord because history has proven that it takes a long time to develop the necessary skills. Even then, it is questionable if drivers are skilled enough, but such is life. Indeed, it is a common skill[1], at least in car-centric North America where there has been a strong incentive for all to learn those skills. That makes it not particularly valuable to offer as a service. Why pay someone to do work you can, in most cases, just as easily do yourself? It has to be quite cheap for you to consider it. But that's something else entirely. [1] Albeit a dwindling one. While ~85% of American adults have their driver's license, only ~60% of 18-year-olds do, down from ~80% in the 1980s. The youth today are backing away from obtaining this particular skill as compared to the past.
  - HPsquared 3y ago
    Speaking English (or any other language) is an even bigger, more complex skill than driving - and we take it for granted too. Basic electrical service in houses is the result of a huge effort to build infrastructure. There are many examples of these "complex but ubiquitous" resources.

hatenberg 3y ago

Jesus that’s a peak techbro comment that couldn’t be more tone deaf. You will find out what it means to have your valuable skills replaced by technology soon enough - just as for example translators have found out.

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]

pylua 3y ago

I would argue taxi driving was a craft before it got commodified. Being a good taxi driver especially in a big city required specialized knowledge of the city. Before cars also got more common driving skills were more of a craft. I wonder if the day will come where this happens to lawyers and doctors with ai. The main point is that the bar is constantly rising and most people can’t stay above it.