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A comment on If pay had kept pace with productivity gains, minimum wage would be $24 an hour. Parent comment

Re:If pay had kept pace with productivity gains, minimum wag... by austinjp on Saturday October 10, 2020 @05:17AM (#24737677)
> Today, I ship all over the world via the internet for $0, have no stock, no scrap, no middlemen, get paid instantly, ship instantly, and the transaction cost is 1% for paypal and 3% for credit cards.

This all true, and empowering for those who have the relevant know-how and opportunities. However, these apparent efficiencies are built on the back of the factors that GP points out. Empowerment for some relies on structures that disempower others. Agency staff live precariously; the companies that use them have ever tighter margins, they are increasingly hollow shells that serve only to generate cash not to provide the security of employment.

The convenience we appear to benefit from is an ever-thinner veneer that disguises deeper problems.

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Re:If pay had kept pace with productivity gains, minimum wag... by WalterBright on Saturday October 10, 2020 @06:23AM (#24737922)
> the relevant know-how and opportunities

I've seen many guides to doing this in the form of blogs. This is not hard information to come by.

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Re:If pay had kept pace with productivity gains, minimum wag... by austinjp on Saturday October 10, 2020 @07:04PM (#24742554)
What separates the haves from the have-nots? It's not blogs.
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Re:If pay had kept pace with productivity gains, minimum wag... by WalterBright on Saturday October 10, 2020 @07:28PM (#24742681)
In America it's largely the choices people make. After all, school doesn't teach how to create a startup. But there are plenty of books and blogs on how to do it. All one needs is the get-up-and-go to take advantage of all the freely available information.
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Re:If pay had kept pace with productivity gains, minimum wag... by austinjp on Tuesday October 13, 2020 @05:12PM (#24770357)
It's not a lack of "get-up-and-go" that perpetuates lack of opportunity. "All one needs"? You could gain some insights here by having a few conversations with people doing the sort of precarious contractor work that was mentioned previously. I doubt they're lacking elbow grease.

There's also an implication that it's simply okay to let job security rot away, that people in precarious work should simply read a few blogs and retrain. I'm not convinced that it's a good plan to ignore creepingly pervasive employment insecurity.

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