Before Uber came along, flexible jobs that you could engage with at any point in time didn't really exist either.

The "glass half full" way to think of it is that Uber bought work flexibility; and as it turns out the labor market values this flexibility with slightly lower wages.

If you think we should out-regulate that, should we ban part time jobs too? How about we ban unpaid time off?

Any barriers to work (i.e. regulation) just accelerates AI taking over all the jobs. Anything that drives up the cost of labour, just means more automation like self-serve kiosks or robo security guards today; and who knows what tomorrow.

If you want to solve societal inequality and provide a safety net, which is something I 100% back, do that through taxation + a universal basic income.

Piece work has existed for at least 500 years[1] and those were definitely "flexible jobs that you could engage with at any point in time." Unsurprisingly, piece-work employment also suffered from many labor issues[2]. Uber is just piece work for giving rides, and so should be governed by laws that protect piece-workers[3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piece_work#Guild_system

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piece_work#Abuse

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piece_work#Minimum_wage

> flexible jobs that you could engage with at any point in time didn't really exist either

Sure they did, we called them “cottage industries”. You’ve always been able to buy from a farmer’s market or small general stores (who source a lot of their merchandise from random craftsmen). Craigslist pre-dates Uber, and classified ads pre-dates Craigslist. There are stores around the world specializing in hand-made and home-made items. Independent contractors have existed since the beginning of civilization, and any city in the world will have a generic handyman service for work around the house.

My wife just sold four candles, Uber wasn’t involved with that. My grandmother knits dishclothes and sells them to a local shop for distribution whenever she decides to go into town, Uber didn’t invent that.

Do you have insight into your father's perspective between the two? I've heard that cab driving, particularly in major metropolitan areas, was a racket in it's own sense (in terms of medallions being a form of indentured servitude) but I'd be curious if Uber has alleviated some of this or just caused people to leap from the frying pan into the fire.

I drove a cab for a summer after college, just before uber blew up.

The lease for the cab was high enough ($600+/wk) that I had to drive ~30 hours to break even, and the rest was profit, usually another 20 hours over the weekend.

Unless you were sharing a lease with another driver, it would've been impossible to work it as part time.

So I would see a benefit to uber over that arrangement except for uber if your car breaks you're out of luck. With a cab, i'd take it to the shop and get another one. Granted they were all pretty beat up crown vics.

The real winners were the owners of the cab company. Like you said, they held the medallions and thus most of the leverage.

It wasn’t really profit - it was the money to pay your own wage. Now, if you took say $10 an hour out, it might be fair to say the rest is profit.

Profit is revenue minus expenses. Employees don't do this calculation, as the employer normally pays for all work expenses. Their paycheck is pure profit -- no expenses to account for. As such, people don't really think of paychecks in these terms, so it sounds strange.

It makes sense in the comment above, as the cab driver actually has work expenses that they pay for out of pocket and are not reimbursed for.

It starts as a gross value and after taxes, ei/old age is taken out it becomes a much smaller net value.

> So I would see a benefit to uber over that arrangement except for uber if your car breaks you're out of luck. With a cab, i'd take it to the shop and get another one

Uber drivers can rent their car by the week.