8 ms·

It's clearly a harbinger of change. The cost of hiring a cleaning service is X+Y, where X is labor and Y is overhead (including insurance, etc). Customers seem

It's clearly a harbinger of change. The cost of hiring a cleaning service is X+Y, where X is labor and Y is overhead (including insurance, etc). Customers seem to be demonstrating that they are willing to take some risks in order to get services with reduced Y, and workers are demonstrating that they are willing to take some risks in return for money and flexibility. The only way this is a passing fad is if customer or employee risk aversion suddenly drastically increases. I don't see any compelling reason why it would.

thenmar 12y ago
I don't think customers are always informed of that risk though, especially when a company is simply ignoring regulations that the customer assumes are being followed.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  Perhaps Homejoy should put this on their site in order to make sure customers are informed: “THE COMPANY DOES NOT PROVIDE CLEANING SERVICES, AND THE COMPANY IS NOT A CLEANING SERVICE PROVIDER. . . . THE COMPANY OFFERS INFORMATION AND A METHOD TO OBTAIN SUCH THIRD PARTY CLEANING SERVICES, BUT DOES NOT AND DOES NOT INTEND TO PROVIDE CLEANING SERVICES OR ACT IN ANY WAY AS A CLEANING SERVICE PROVIDER, AND HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY OR LIABILITY FOR ANY CLEANING SERVICES PROVIDED TO YOU BY SUCH THIRD PARTIES.”
  - judk 12y ago
    Which is contradicted by their home page, which says "Get your place cleaned" and "we will come back and re-clean it"
- ryanobjc 12y ago
  this is a good point, and while TOS may 'legally' protect a company via so-called 'consent' the reality is people often have a different idea of what they THOUGHT they were getting in to and what legally the company claims they can get away with. This is the kind of things that eventually lead to class action suits, but settling this via the courts takes years.
toomuchtodo 12y ago
> and workers are demonstrating that they are willing to take some risks in return for money and flexibility. Workers are only willing to do this because, as you read in the article, the only other choice is to be unemployed. They are not choosing this voluntarily.
- coryrc 12y ago
  Like everyone else.
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    Are you saying that everyone in the country hates their job, is barely scraping by, and only does it because they have no other choice?
  - bmm6o 12y ago
    That's the way the market is moving, but that doesn't mean we have to like it or accept it. Society is not some race to the bottom to be the last person to starve to death in the gutter. A lot of hard-won labor victories (overtime, breaks, termination rights, FMLA, etc) are being lost here and we don't have to accept it. I know regulation and unionization are dirty words here, but they are some of the very few weapons to fight this trend.
- rzt 12y ago
  Also, the companies are deflecting costs back onto taxpayers by ensuring that many of their workers will need to depend on government services for health care, housing and food assistance, etc. Sure, some of these taskrabbits/ubers/lyfters/whatever are making a real wage at this stuff, but many of them are also minimally employed –– and trying hard to get work as they can get it. In so many ways, we are all subsidizing these companies.
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    I'm sorry you're getting downvoted; you're absolutely correct.
ebiester 12y ago
It seems more true that workers have signalled that they are desperate. This is doubly true with workers with only a high school education and those who are minorities. We have some major structural employment issues going on.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  You realize that "structural employment issues" refers to the either a) an inability for buyers and sellers to find each other or b) a bunch of sellers have no willing buyers at any price? Homejoy is resolving those structural issues by making it easier for buyers and sellers to find each other.
  - scarmig 12y ago
    The ever-growing group b) isn't helped by Homejoy etc. No matter how low their price or how low the search costs get, they still have no purchasers. Their labor has either zero or negative marginal product. That's a structural issue: just as aging pulls people out of the labor pool, the increased substitutability of capital for labor is pulling out working-age adults from the pool of workers who are realistically able to work. Homejoy etc. does help the people at the margins of this pool who wouldn't otherwise be affordable to employ (e.g. due to overhead costs), but it doesn't obviate the basic structural trends happening.
    - yummyfajitas 12y ago
      Why do you believe group (b) is growing? Is the number of people who are disabled and unable to clean a home or do any other useful work increasing?

thenmar 12y ago

I don't think customers are always informed of that risk though, especially when a company is simply ignoring regulations that the customer assumes are being followed.

yummyfajitas 12y ago
Perhaps Homejoy should put this on their site in order to make sure customers are informed: “THE COMPANY DOES NOT PROVIDE CLEANING SERVICES, AND THE COMPANY IS NOT A CLEANING SERVICE PROVIDER. . . . THE COMPANY OFFERS INFORMATION AND A METHOD TO OBTAIN SUCH THIRD PARTY CLEANING SERVICES, BUT DOES NOT AND DOES NOT INTEND TO PROVIDE CLEANING SERVICES OR ACT IN ANY WAY AS A CLEANING SERVICE PROVIDER, AND HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY OR LIABILITY FOR ANY CLEANING SERVICES PROVIDED TO YOU BY SUCH THIRD PARTIES.”
- judk 12y ago
  Which is contradicted by their home page, which says "Get your place cleaned" and "we will come back and re-clean it"
ryanobjc 12y ago
this is a good point, and while TOS may 'legally' protect a company via so-called 'consent' the reality is people often have a different idea of what they THOUGHT they were getting in to and what legally the company claims they can get away with. This is the kind of things that eventually lead to class action suits, but settling this via the courts takes years.

toomuchtodo 12y ago

> and workers are demonstrating that they are willing to take some risks in return for money and flexibility. Workers are only willing to do this because, as you read in the article, the only other choice is to be unemployed. They are not choosing this voluntarily.

coryrc 12y ago
Like everyone else.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  Are you saying that everyone in the country hates their job, is barely scraping by, and only does it because they have no other choice?
- bmm6o 12y ago
  That's the way the market is moving, but that doesn't mean we have to like it or accept it. Society is not some race to the bottom to be the last person to starve to death in the gutter. A lot of hard-won labor victories (overtime, breaks, termination rights, FMLA, etc) are being lost here and we don't have to accept it. I know regulation and unionization are dirty words here, but they are some of the very few weapons to fight this trend.
rzt 12y ago
Also, the companies are deflecting costs back onto taxpayers by ensuring that many of their workers will need to depend on government services for health care, housing and food assistance, etc. Sure, some of these taskrabbits/ubers/lyfters/whatever are making a real wage at this stuff, but many of them are also minimally employed –– and trying hard to get work as they can get it. In so many ways, we are all subsidizing these companies.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  I'm sorry you're getting downvoted; you're absolutely correct.

ebiester 12y ago

It seems more true that workers have signalled that they are desperate. This is doubly true with workers with only a high school education and those who are minorities. We have some major structural employment issues going on.

yummyfajitas 12y ago
You realize that "structural employment issues" refers to the either a) an inability for buyers and sellers to find each other or b) a bunch of sellers have no willing buyers at any price? Homejoy is resolving those structural issues by making it easier for buyers and sellers to find each other.
- scarmig 12y ago
  The ever-growing group b) isn't helped by Homejoy etc. No matter how low their price or how low the search costs get, they still have no purchasers. Their labor has either zero or negative marginal product. That's a structural issue: just as aging pulls people out of the labor pool, the increased substitutability of capital for labor is pulling out working-age adults from the pool of workers who are realistically able to work. Homejoy etc. does help the people at the margins of this pool who wouldn't otherwise be affordable to employ (e.g. due to overhead costs), but it doesn't obviate the basic structural trends happening.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    Why do you believe group (b) is growing? Is the number of people who are disabled and unable to clean a home or do any other useful work increasing?