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Comment by WheelsAtLarge | Hacker News Reader

Uber, and all, will just rewrite the prop and try again. Gig work is here to stay. They just have to figuerout how to make it work for all.

I doubt the legislature will get its way or that Uber will get their way either. A few years from now a middle ground will be found. Gig work works at some level since both workers and customers want it. Uber just took a bigger bite than it should have this round.

Also, this issue will end up at the California supreme court level so this is just the first round of many.

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Uber only has so much cash on hand (about $6B as of Jun 20th, 2021; having lost $28B over the last 5.5 years [1]). Governments and legal proceedings can outlast unprofitable gig work companies with limited runway, no? Eventually someone with common sense is going to stop throwing money at these concerns with no chance of profitability.

[1] https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/08/hubert-horan-can-ube...

Gig work is a new way to work. Just because Uber might go away it does not mean that gig work will disappear, other business models will continue it. I suspect someone will make it work.

Look at free shipping, at first, it looks like a money pit that could never be part of a profitable business. But Amazon Prime is not only making it work but it powers the company's earnings. You just never know.

Gig work exists until regulation catches up. It’s worker classification fraud masquerading as innovation (imho), in typical Silicon Valley fashion. It’s taking longer than it took Homejoy to fail (~5 years), but someone will close the capital spigot eventually. What is the terminal or discounted cash flow value of perpetual double digit negative margins?

Gig work doesn't HAVE to be classification fraud; a service could actually treat the gig workers as contractors in the correct legal way... the current services don't, but it isn't necessarily fundamental to the business model.

Agreed, but that is not what is on offer at the moment. Services want all of the control without any of the obligation or liabilities.

What would Uber look like if the drivers had the latitude of a contractor? Would it still be as viable business-wise?

Probably, but not as a billion dollar unicorn.

Gig work is a new work to exploit people, more precisely. It's hardly feasible to make a decent living out of being an Uber driver.

The flexibility is more valuable

Cash on hand in a world with 0% interest rates? They can raise 10B in six weeks. They're a 75B company.

Sooner or later investors will stop lending to a company that isn't profitable.

Re-read your text again: Uber lost almost 30 billion dollars over 5 years, and literally no one batted an eye.

Uber has been around for 10 years. It'll be around for ten more. It does have unlimited money (as does every other "unicorn" in the US). Because that's Uber's modus operandi: dump prices until all competitors that don't have infinite money die off.

> Because that's Uber's modus operandi: dump prices until all competitors that don't have infinite money die off.

What happens after that? The minute they raise prices, they invite an antitrust lawsuit for the low prices. If they don’t raise prices, they continue to be a money sink.

> What happens after that?

That's a good question. I don't think anyone knows, even at Uber

> Gig work works at some level since both workers and customers want it.

That's rather superficial.

Workers want it compared to what? A full time job with benefits? Most likely not. It's mainly driven by sweatshop market logic, "So you want the textile workers to starve?".

Customer want it? Of course, the lower prices enables an inflated lifestyle.

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