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Comment by icebraining | Hacker News Reader

> The gig economy was supposed to create lots of well-paying, independent jobs;

I hate this kind of revisionism. The gig economy was never some sort of political plan that promised anything. It was just the name given to the increasingly common work model. In fact, "creating jobs" was pretty much the opposite of the gig economy.

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I did a historical search of articles using: "uber on the promise of gig economy" and cutoff articles after 2017

First article has a paragraph that is fairly representative:

https://hbr.org/2016/11/what-motivates-gig-economy-workers

> One of the promises of the gig economy is that workers have more flexibility to work when and as much as they want. That’s why many people start driving to earn extra income outside of their day jobs or in their free time. Hobbyists represent an illustrative segment of part-time drivers in the ridehail workforce. These supplemental earners are comprised of retirees, working professionals, and empty-nesters. Their primary motivation to work is often social. My research suggests that they benefit most clearly from Uber’s employment model of independent contract labor, as they gain more opportunities for marginal employment and are less vulnerable to the same business practices (e.g., rate cuts) that prompt strikes and protests from drivers who rely on Uber as a primary source of their household income.

I ride Uber daily to commute to work. The article describes pretty well my experience with Uber. It is a bimodal mix of (1) people who want flexible, marginal employment and (2) people who make a living out of it. The people who make a living out of it definitely get the short end of the stick.

Is it viable to do Uber flexibly in the US?

In the UK it's not. I looked into it as I'd enjoy driving people about on weekends, and I rarely drink so I could do nights out etc. Assuming you have a car that's suitable, you still need a private hire licence and taxi insurance that make it uneconomical unless you do fairly long hours.

In the US, regulations on Uber are mostly at a state or city level, so in many cities you don’t need that special license, etc (although your regular insurance company won’t be happy if they catch on)

Exactly. Where does it say "well-paying jobs"? They're talking about people who already have jobs or pensions, just making a few bucks on the site, and whose "primary motivation to work is often social", not money.

How is “creating jobs” pretty much the opposite of the gig economy? Almost across the board, gig economy companies have made it more convenient and cheaper to consume services. Both of these changes result in more demand. As more demand is created, jobs are created. You may argue that automation (like self driving cars) will ultimately destroy these jobs but this shift would occur with or without the gig economy. These new jobs that are being created may be rubbish, but the net difference is still job creation.

A job is a position of employment you get hired for. The gig economy may also created paid work, but not jobs. Nobody gets hired by Uber to drive.

I don't think it's revisionism. I think it's an accurate description of the hype that surrounded the gig economy. That's what everyone used to parrot in defense of borderline illegal "disruption" by Uber and such.

To quote Ronald Wright, "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." The gig economy is just a new way of exploiting that mindset.

I don't agree. Go read the news articles from 2009-2011. The "gig economy" was almost always quite descriptive, about the class of precarious workers forced by the recession to take up piece-meal worker. Only a few CEOs and sycophants waxed poetically about it, and even they stressed that it was mostly a way to make extra cash, not a job replacement.

The quotation gives "The Gig Economy" active voice. The author is saying those who enacted the economic model had the intention of creating those well paying jobs. They obviously never had any intention like that. That statement is revisionist.

The American Dream promised = the american dream was a shared belief and mindset.

Its not so much saying the gig economy was an actor with its own agency, there is an implication that the gig economy was a shared perspective of hope.

I never observed that shared perspective of hope in Uber drivers I rode with, though. It was always a means to an end, not the means to the end. If people thought they were going to end up with a better life, it was because they were finishing their master's degree, or running a software business, or just wanted to stay in the U.S. while their kids got acculturated and educated. Uber was a way to rack up some extra spending money in the meantime. Nobody I've met was under any illusions about their ability to get rich off Uber, except maybe the Uber employees with stock options.

I do think the promise was "easy money on your own time, be your own boss." Something you could do to fill the cracks, without getting a second job. Every uber driver ive ever talked to about it says one of the main reasons they do it is being able to choose when to work.

Conversely, many socialists also don't see themselves as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarassed bolshevik central planners.

Too many people think they know what is best for other people, but they often have no skin in the game and suffer no consequences if the choices they make for others turn out to be wrong.

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