Re:Uber discusses plan to lay off about 20% of employees
by TeMPOraL on Wednesday April 29, 2020 @11:40AM
(#23020511)
Thanks for your detailed reply. I'm open to being wrong in my views about the gig economy, and will happily continue this conversation in an e-mail.
I know you weren't accusing me of anything; it just occurred to me, while writing n-th comment in this thread, that what I write may be perceived as arrogant or pretentious, so I wanted to add a caveat about it. I know you actually depended on gig work, which is a perspective I lack.
Re:Uber discusses plan to lay off about 20% of employees
by DoreenMichele on Wednesday April 29, 2020 @02:50PM
(#23022718)
You are more than welcome to email me. I'm very short of sleep, so nothing is occurring to me as something more I want to say, but I'm happy to reply to you about your thoughts on the topic and engage in further discussion.
Cheers.
I think the efficiency gains of the gig economy are real and can potentially benefit all parties. The fact that they often don't is something that I tend to "attribute to stupidity rather than malice" as the saying goes.
I'm really short of sleep and maybe that's the problem here, or part of it. I'm happy to discuss this with you, but I wasn't accusing you of anything at all.
I have thought a great deal about this and I run r/GigWorks because I feel strongly that gig work can be "the next industrial revolution."
When I was homeless and began doing gig work, I sometimes made like $1.25/hour, which is terrible. But it was more than I would have otherwise had and it allowed me to build towards something better and it made sense for me.
When I'm having a good a day, I can make more like $20/hour these days. The flexibility mattered to me and I continue to struggle to articulate the very real value of details like that.
We keep raising the bar and raising the bar until you have to have a PhD and be making a mint to have any hope of moving out of your parents basement, so to speak. And that's a problem.