This isn't about demand: this is about labour supply, and how the lack of opportunity makes gig economy business models possible.

You're going to have to empirically demonstrate to me that these gig economy business models would not be possible.

Their growth may have been aided by current levels of unemployment and underemployment, but to say they wouldn't exist is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence.

Even then I could see them growing as fast if there were a robust middle class with disposable income to spend on these services.

The only thing that would change is the supply and demand curves. There would be more demand and less supply, making the only thing that would change would be the equilibrium price point where those two intersect.

I'll just comment on "The only thing that would change is the supply and demand curves." Just taking Uber, it seems they've been pretty adamant that their entire business model is predicated on having a large enough supply of drivers that (a) wait times should be no more than 5 mins and (b) prices are lower than cabs. For example, Uber flat out left Austin because they said that fingerprinting regulations would not allow them to have a large enough supply of drivers.

Thus, I do agree with you that that the only thing that would change is the supply and demand curves, but many of these business models seem to depend on the very idea of there being a large enough supply to enable prices to be lower than alternatives.

You're misrepresenting the reason Uber left Austin. Citations?

I don't know why you think I'm misrepresenting. This was one of the first articles when I googled "uber statement on leaving austin": http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/08/technology/uber-lyft-austin-...

Perhaps the Lyft statement (Lyft left too) says it the clearest:

"The rules passed by City Council don't allow true ridesharing to operate. Instead, they make it harder for part-time drivers, the heart of Lyft's peer-to-peer model, to get on the road and harder for passengers to get a ride."

Neither statement is equivalent to "would not allow them to have a large enough supply of drivers."

If you read more than just one article on the issue, you can see that it's much more nuanced than how you represented it. They left because they both have background checks in place and that adding fingerprinting adds an additional bureaucratic burden that has poor predictive power, places an undue burden on drivers who want to engage part-time and disproportionally prevents minority communities from participating. Background checks add nothing of value and if either company were to validate Austin's approach by acquiescing, they would pave the way for other cities to follow that model.

Opposing measure on principle because it adds costs and friction without adding value is not equivalent to the statement you made. Every business is right to oppose regulations that increase costs, especially those regulations of highly dubious value. Opposing such measures is not evidence of a business model not being valid.

> The only thing that would change is the supply and demand curves. There would be more demand and less supply, making the only thing that would change would be the equilibrium price point where those two intersect.

You assume that Say's law applies to labor markets, but this idea has been overturned by empirical evidence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_unemployment

Involuntary unemployment cannot be represented with a basic supply and demand model at a competitive equilibrium

But do the conditions that overturn Say's Law apply to this market. Just because it's been proven wrong under some circumstances doesn't mean it's still not broadly applicable in most cases (with caveats).