Gig Economy Workers Buy Like They Work | Hacker News Reader

Gig Economy Workers Buy Like They Work

fortune.com

20 pointsprostoalex8 comments

[This new gym] is just one more example of companies that are now answering the call from today’s burgeoning gig economy for products and services that are stylish and fun but also cheap and focused—and customizable. Used to working on-demand anywhere and anytime, gig economy freelancers expect the same kind of flexibility and focus from the vendors who provide the picks and shovels of their often-blurred personal and professional lives.

Author is confusing the "gig economy" w/ the "as a service" business model.

The "gig economy" refers to changes in the composition of the labor force and the different types of contracts that are becoming the norm between employer/employee. Uber treats its drivers as quasi employee contractors who have more flexible work schedules but do not get the traditional benefits of a salaried employee, and generally need to provide their own capital (vehicle).

The "as a service" model refers more to the vendor/customer relationship where customers are coming to expect more flexibility and subscription services rather than outright purchases of goods and services. You buy a monthly subscription for server space and compute power rather than a dedicated server room w/ IT staff & sysadmins. Then you layer on security, analytics, dev management, mobile, testing tools as needed. In the gym example, you buy the bare bones subscription package and add towel service, snacks, earbuds, other privileges as you see fit.

Both buzzwords that do an adequate job of describing new business models, but the author confuses the concepts and kind of fumbles around, naming different companies that could be vaguely associated w/ pioneering either one.

The "as a service" model is useful for B2B, but many consumers hate it.

It has additional hidden fees everywhere, and in the overall view it often turns out to be more expensive than the classical model. From cheap Airlines (a 1€ flight with 40€ fee for using a credit card, and 5€ fee per kg of body weight) to "all-inclusive" Hotels (with extra fees per minute spent in the pool) to the cloud.

For example:

I can get a server with Intel® Xeon® E3-1270 v3, 32GB RAM and 4TB HDD for 70€ a month as dedicated server at Hetzner.

Or I can get a "Quad Core" with 8GB of RAM and 80GB of SSD for the same price at DigitalOcean.

The pricing of the "as a service" things is insane for the minor benefit in convenience they provide.

And a lot of the hobby users hate it – be it Adobe’s Creative Cloud (hobby users used to just buy one version and stick with it for years) – be it JetBrains new subscription model, etc.

Yeah, the "gig economy" gym would be pay-per-use rather than subscription. Subscriptions are of course hugely popular with gyms because people are bad at going to the gym.

This article smells like native advertising.

After reading the article I'm still confused what a "gig economy" is.

1) make up terms 2) get click through 3) profit

I thought it was "employment" through services like Uber where workers are independent contractors who set their own hours.

I'm pretty sure it's a falumpkin that they ooplunkle through the diplesplit. I'm currently working on an article on falumpkining that should explain it all pretty huflinkinlipit.

It's just like being a worker, but without any rights.

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