The problem is less with the qualities of the job and more with the pay of the job.
It's poverty wages and exploitative. It's not profiting off these people, it's profiteering off of them.
It's poverty wages and exploitative. It's not profiting off these people, it's profiteering off of them.
You can subsidize these low-income jobs, but this is expensive and unsustainable (by definition, there are a lot of low-income people who need to be subsidized).
The only way out of the situation is to raise demand, and sharing economy does exactly that. In the days before (except maybe in the NYC), taxis were used relatively rarely; now, Uber is ubiquitous and used without hesitation in many places.
Money is not everything. I know society is better when people are healthy and happy than when they are not. The gig economy is not helping society it's making life more difficult for those that have no choice on what job they can get.
Today in developed countries, only about 3% of population work as farmers. Soon, only about 3% of population will have jobs — the rest will have to do something else (like be employed in the sharing economy gigs). This is inevitable, and there is no way to reverse this. Government regulations can't do anything to oppose these immense natural forces, nor they will need to.
Or rather there is a way to reverse the trend and provide the need for immense material economic output: a war. A world war — because warring parties quickly lose the economic edge in a peaceful economy, and it's either everyone's in, or nobody goes. There are no unemployed at wartime.
Uber competes with McDonald's for workers, but no one really thinks about whether workers are better off than at McDonald's.
With the fight for 15 and other minimum wage increases, many people argue that increasing wages will not substantially effect demand for labor, but it's sort of hard to make the case in the taxi space since reduced price has clearly led to an explosion of demand.
I'm eyes wide open about the downsides of many of these jobs, especially the ones that involve using your own car. I just want to mention the upside because it's important. It has helped a really save a few of my friends butts at really tough times in their lives. I don't want to lose site of that. Optionality is important.