The "jobs" economy is over. It felt good while it lasted (about 140 years), when the economic output was mostly measured in material goods, and jobs were organized around large factories (either belonging to corporations, like in the US or Europe or Japan, or directly to the state, like in the USSR). Now in the post-industrial world, when the material goods production is mostly saturated, still believing that jobs can provide economic sustenance is about as realistic as believing that everybody can work as a farmer and live a good life producing food.

Today in developed countries, only about 3% of population work as farmers. Soon, only about 3% of population will have jobs — the rest will have to do something else (like be employed in the sharing economy gigs). This is inevitable, and there is no way to reverse this. Government regulations can't do anything to oppose these immense natural forces, nor they will need to.

Or rather there is a way to reverse the trend and provide the need for immense material economic output: a war. A world war — because warring parties quickly lose the economic edge in a peaceful economy, and it's either everyone's in, or nobody goes. There are no unemployed at wartime.

The gig economy gets a lot of hate, but it is successful because it is better than the alternative for both sides.

Uber competes with McDonald's for workers, but no one really thinks about whether workers are better off than at McDonald's.

With the fight for 15 and other minimum wage increases, many people argue that increasing wages will not substantially effect demand for labor, but it's sort of hard to make the case in the taxi space since reduced price has clearly led to an explosion of demand.