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Comment by brudgers | Hacker News Reader

One aspect of the "gig economy" that I've not seen covered is the way it effects gigsters professional social graphs. At the deep end of Mechanical Turk services where work is dispatched by an algorithm (Uber/Lyft/AirBnB/etc.) there are no upward connections to supervisors and managers and officers and no lateral connections to coworkers.

This means that working does not provide insider access to potentially better (or alternative) jobs when coworkers move on. There's no implicit social framework for insider information. There's no personal channel where a Lyft driver finds out that Uber is a better opportunity (or vice versa).

To put it another way, two Lyft drivers have little basis for connecting on Linkedin. Not that I think Linkedin is great. Only that gigsters don't even get the loose social connections that Linkedin facilitates...and cynically, the gig economy casts other Lyft drivers as competitors rather than coworkers.

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This is a really great insight. It certainly bolsters the argument that these are dead in jobs. As in, the professional social graph literally dead ends.

On the other hand, I know a couple of people who started driving for Lyft recently to supplement income when their other freelance work slows. They've found pretty creative ways to make the most of the gig. One guy in particular is doing some social/influencer type stuff around it and has found some clients for his primary work as a content writer.

Going in the other direction, my wife is a lawyer and is always chatting with drivers and giving them her business card. She helped a driver with some questionable traffic tickets. Nothing major, just a short phone call and some free advice that got the tickets throw out. When his brother got hit by someone running a red light, she got the case.

There's always value generated when people connect. Sure, two Lyft drivers don't have a lot of reason to connect, but a Lyft driver has the opportunity to connect with people who do other things. Maybe there's some value in that that is just now being explored.

Sure, people can get creative. The difference is that gigsters have no alternative to being creative. But chatting up riders is part of Lyft driver's work because they must maintain high ratings. To put it another way, being a content writer or social influencer is entirely orthogonal to driving a car or delivering groceries or walking dogs on demand. A person can be a content writer or social influencer while having a regular job with benefits and coworkers and an expanding professional network...and most people would be better off career-wise in such circumstances.

I mean in the story, it is the lawyer in the back seat making some rain. It isn't the driver getting hired at the law firm or even getting a lead on a better job. The driver just avoided some of the costs of doing business that they might otherwise have payed. Not that that's nothing, but it's not career enhancing.

Perhaps there's not social connection directly in the workplace, but there IS social connection between Uber/Lyft/etc drivers online. It was on HN a week or two ago: https://www.fastcompany.com/40501439/the-network-uber-driver... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16110598

The Network Uber Drivers Built:

Ride-hail drivers work alone, but they’re banding together online to compare notes, uncover new policies, and help each other navigate the rough roads of the gig economy.

Similar online communities exist for Mechanical Turk.

(I don't think your overall point is wrong, just pointing out that contractors often figure out ways to organize online anyway... This is a good trend, and hopefully spreads as a way to counteract the sometimes-isolating world of contract work...)

Personally, I think web forums like that are a poor substitute for actual interpersonal social connection. A 1-1 relationship with a friend, colleague, or supervisor can give you in particular a leg up when you need it. Any broadcast medium can't fill that role, all it can do is disseminate information to a wide group.

> can give you in particular a leg up when you need it. Any broadcast medium can't fill that role, all it can do is disseminate information to a wide group.

If all we're talking about is getting a small number of people a leg up, then is it so bad (socially) that contract work lacks that? In my mind, the whole question is about overall social benefit, thus benefit to the "wide group." In fact, if web forums are as equality-inducing as you imply (which I kind of doubt, to be honest), that would count as a big benefit overall to that kind of system.

> If all we're talking about is getting a small number of people a leg up

That's the wrong interpretation. It's about giving a large number of people each a personalized leg up. It's equality-inducing in the worst sense to have everyone hit the same indifferent and impersonal wall. Personalized opportunities are how you find holes through that wall.

Basically real human relationships are a safety valve in an inhumane system. Weak and distant broadcast relationships aren't.

One of the ways people get better jobs is when a former boss or coworker moves into a position with the authority to hire. Online communities centered around driving for Lyft/Uber don't provide that. As described, they tend to provide support to help people survive as gigsters not advance their careers. Perhaps they provide some ways to marginally leverage the system to obtain somewhat better wages, which isn't nothing but its not career enhancing.

I think you raise a good point. This is possibly the effect of using apps to lower the transaction costs of arranging services. It allows work projects to be decomposed into isolated, repetitive micro-jobs.

Another aspect of gig economy companies controlling networking: they typically ban workers from communicating directly with customers. Ostensibly it's for safety reasons, but the real reason is most likely to prevent workers and customers from circumventing the fees. The result is that workers are not able to develop a regular set of clients which could provide referrals, etc.

I have noticed that too. If you drive for Uber you don't get much insight into the company, you never talk to a boss to learn something and you don't learn from coworkers. You also don't develop a brand or reputation for yourself.

It's a total dead-end.

Actually, there are large Uber/Lyft driver groups on Facebook and probably elsewhere (9000 members for Bay Area alone), where information on deals and threats spreads like wildfire. It is not formal, but there seems to be some social capital acquired by members helping each-other out. In that kind of environment, the connections don't get deep, but breadth can't be beat (especially if you contribute valuable stuff to the group).

What's more interesting is that the the available Gig Economy workforce has aggregated so well that Social Groups can become the new Unions, and mass actions can trigger swiftly. Uber is valued highly due to switching costs, but one can start a competitor and let most of the company's drivers know in a day.

Of course, the "workers" are supposed to be disposable commodities. There's no need for professional cooperation between commodities.

Otherwise they might talk too much: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pgkk7b/newbie-dri...

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