4 ms·

I've been expecting freelancing to become the dominant means of finding work for a long time now. It just seems inevitable. Think about it. What does an empl

I've been expecting freelancing to become the dominant means of finding work for a long time now. It just seems inevitable. Think about it. What does an employer offer you? Security? Nope. Pension? Nope. Predictable income? Nope. Companies have abandoned absolutely every single thing they ever offered to employees. They stagger along now just because people go to them out of habit. Companies first came around because someone has to solve the distribution problem. That was such a valuable problem to solve that it shaped commerce and society for well over 100 years. It still shapes society. And it shouldn't. The Internet solves the distribution problem. It makes it so any 12 year old with a net connection can run circles around any mega-corporation when it comes to distributing product from point A to point B. The only place the 12 year old CAN'T beat the corporation is the place that large corporations never really managed to penetrate much in the first place - goods and service which are actually intrinsically bound to geography. You need your hair stylist to be physically near you. You need the plumber to be near you. And those people do not work for a mega-multinational. And I expect when the change happens, it will only take a matter of weeks or months. There will be a sudden realization on all sides. Companies will realize they can't get ridiculously profitable workers for dirt cheap any more. Workers will realize their company has been playing them like a game - and realize that if they play the company at the same game instead of listening to myths their parents told them - they will kick ass any time. Zero overhead, zero debt and obligations going up against a large organization who relies COMPLETELY on the ability to hire workers who will accept pay less than 5% of the value they actually earn for the company? It's not even a competition.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Regular employment still has one thing going for it - the unbounded term. Contract employees have to renegotiate every so often. Employment - no issue. Also your insurance keeps renewing, which is convenient.
- r00fus 12y ago
  Well, in the wrong place (i.e., downsizing org or stacked ranking), you do end up "renegotiating" just that its' mostly on employers terms, and quite an unbalanced contract.
krschultz 12y ago
It's very true. Companies pretty much provide healthcare that may be a better deal than a freelancer can get, paid vacation, and stable income during periods of time when it might for one reason or another be difficult to find work. In exchange for that, you take on the high risk of only having 1 business paying you at any given time, and only learning about the world via 1 business. If something goes wrong with that business, or they end up doing things in a way that is not relevant to the wider world, you can get screwed.
bambax 12y ago
I'm a freelancer and too have wondered why every one else isn't. I think part of the reason is that freelancers actually do the work; they write a proposal, and then three months later people check what they produced. So called "white collar" employees, for the most part and in my experience, pretty much sit around doing, well, nothing. They go to meetings, talk on the phone and check out the work produced by various contractors, consultants and trainees, drink gallons of coffee, and that's pretty much it. This is of course a generalization; people who have physical jobs (moving things or making them) are in a different category, as well as people whose output is somehow monitored, etc. But in many many big companies there are swathes of people who would be hard pressed to account for any of their day. And they still get paid, and they still have a job, and they still have colleagues. That's something.
pjbrunet 12y ago
I never thought of it that way. However, I think companies would be fine (for a while) with all their government contracts and lawyers. I get the impression the "free market" doesn't really apply to big corporations. One advantage corps have is teamwork. (Maybe I need to get in on some kind of mastermind group.)

JoeAltmaier 12y ago

Regular employment still has one thing going for it - the unbounded term. Contract employees have to renegotiate every so often. Employment - no issue. Also your insurance keeps renewing, which is convenient.

r00fus 12y ago
Well, in the wrong place (i.e., downsizing org or stacked ranking), you do end up "renegotiating" just that its' mostly on employers terms, and quite an unbalanced contract.

krschultz 12y ago

It's very true. Companies pretty much provide healthcare that may be a better deal than a freelancer can get, paid vacation, and stable income during periods of time when it might for one reason or another be difficult to find work. In exchange for that, you take on the high risk of only having 1 business paying you at any given time, and only learning about the world via 1 business. If something goes wrong with that business, or they end up doing things in a way that is not relevant to the wider world, you can get screwed.

bambax 12y ago

I'm a freelancer and too have wondered why every one else isn't. I think part of the reason is that freelancers actually do the work; they write a proposal, and then three months later people check what they produced. So called "white collar" employees, for the most part and in my experience, pretty much sit around doing, well, nothing. They go to meetings, talk on the phone and check out the work produced by various contractors, consultants and trainees, drink gallons of coffee, and that's pretty much it. This is of course a generalization; people who have physical jobs (moving things or making them) are in a different category, as well as people whose output is somehow monitored, etc. But in many many big companies there are swathes of people who would be hard pressed to account for any of their day. And they still get paid, and they still have a job, and they still have colleagues. That's something.

pjbrunet 12y ago

I never thought of it that way. However, I think companies would be fine (for a while) with all their government contracts and lawyers. I get the impression the "free market" doesn't really apply to big corporations. One advantage corps have is teamwork. (Maybe I need to get in on some kind of mastermind group.)