Deliveroo bikers have chosen Deliveroo over those, and there must be a reason for that, which the article fails to mention.

I'm also not taking sides, I just want to point out it's flat out wrong to say "if they're doing this in these conditions, it is probably because they don't have a choice".

Have you done this?

A former coworker had a similar story. He got into a fight with his wife because she was spending all day in facebook instead of finding a job, so out of frustration and spite he went out to pretty much the first pizza joint he could find and talked to the manager. 30 mins later she now had a job.

Heck, I have another cousin with schizophrenia who managed to land a security job (he didn't last unfortunately due to his condition worsening), but it goes to show finding a low pay job isn't some insurmountable task.

Another friend with a strong public school degree who floated around for months interviewing until she moved back with her parents, then finally got a job at the local library.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed

In your first example you mentioned a 'she'. From what I've been told from friends in the service industry, that's a plus (even somewhat if you're not considered attractive, but obviously much less so).

In your second example it didn't last, so it's quite possible a number of these "didn't last" experiences lead to doing deliveroo-style work.

Furthermore, I've been shocked by how terrible some people are at 1) considering alternatives to whatever choices they think they have, and 2) doing okay in an interview.

I get the impression lots of people are just not rational actors in these matters, and there are all sorts of hidden factors that can prevent someone from going for the 'better' jobs. I don't have strong opinions on what we should conclude from that, but I am at least inclined to think making the shittiest option as good as possible might be an all-round good thing to pursue.

That's a lot faster than I would predict. What are you basing that on?

Employers have a duty to their employees and to the society and community that grants them the right to the fiction of their existence, and that is being shirked.

Which is why Britain has the NHS.

To me, the entire point of a robust welfare state is that you don't need to regulate employment nearly as strictly, because then you aren't as reliant on employers for life necessities. And that's a net positive, because regulation is far less effective than entitlements.

Sure! But the NHS is effectively becoming "care for the old and everyone else can shift for themselves" in a lot of ways. And there are plenty of other ways that the social safety net in the UK (to say nothing of other places Deliveroo et al. operate, like the United States) is being sabotaged--council housing is shrinking, when it's not catching on fire, etc.

> And that's a net positive, because regulation is far less effective than entitlements.

Completely agreed. But political forces exist to trash them, so...welp.

So, let's say you're an investor. You've got the choice of:

1) invest in a business with traditional happy lifer employees

2) invest in a business that treats its workforce like disposable contractors and may eventually become an Enemy of the People's Press, but offers higher potential returns, and may be able to eke out an existence in a niche that #1 could never serve.

3) invest in some less active financial instrument alchemy that employs zero local people and threatens no publicity waves

There is (maybe) an argument that #1 is preferable to #2, but it's at least complicated. However, I think it's general agreed that both #1 & #2 are preferable to #3.

If we're already talking Unions and unfair treatment of contractors 5 years into the existence of a type 1 here, one that no one knows could even exist under traditional employment circumstances, we may very well be driving funding into the reduced hassle of #3.

That's certainly what it would do to me, though granted my "fuck it" threshold is 5-10x lower than the average person's.

Society should work for the benefit of society, not just those in a position of power. We are seeing a change in how employment works, and we (i.e. society) need to work out how to handle this change. This article is part of the debate. You should not try to shut down the debate.

I just think before you fight for something, you should be certain that what you're after is worth winning.

I think it is generally agreed that #4 is preferable to #3. Because local jobs!111

I mean, seriously? That is your argument?

This is the thinking that leads to the shuttering of harsh garment factories in the developing world so the employees can go back to child sex work.

Keep in mind that early industrialization was mainly subsistence farmers moving into cities to hugely improve their lives. Child labor was the norm, especially on farms, so children working in factories was an improvement. Do you think that accidents didn't happen to kids subsistence farming with their families or starving to death in central Europe?

I take it this was a general rhetorical question and not something you're specifically asking me - but either way, it's irrelevant. The fact is that 'we' (wherever I say 'we' here, I mean 'we as a society') didn't care enough about those children dying in the field or mud huts, but we did care when they started dying in factories (while that may not be 'rational' for a Less Wrong definition of 'rational', experiments on the trolley problem have shown in the past that there might be wide spread ethical intuitions that make this situation 'understandable' - but I digress).

I wasn't stating how things 'ought to be', just 'how things are'. 'How they ought to be' is in this case a trite discussion (at the level and within the means we have here). The OP however asked a facetious or naive question about 'how things are', one for which there is a simple, factual answer.

If you're white, you do.

It's easy to forget that today's industry is (still) built on slavery or near-slavery in the third world.