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Comment by drawkbox | Hacker News Reader

The movie Sorry to Bother You has a satirical look at the sharing economy gone awry. In the movie a controversial company called WorryFree exists that promises lifelong security where people willingly become slaves to live in dorms and survive without worry but for free. The movie is excellent.

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Sounds interesting. The description of WorryFree reminds me of Brave New World.

I keep meaning to watch it. Sounds like there's a lot of interesting little parts to it.

How is it a look at the sharing economy in particular? It was a satirical take on modern capitalism, sure, but I didn't see how WorryFree was supposed to remind you of a person working a contracting job such as an Uber driver. Quite the opposite in fact, the employees of WorryFree seemed to be signing up for lifelong, permanent and inflexible employment terms. Uber drivers may get a raw deal but surely one would acknowledge at least that they have more flexibility w.r.t. when and where they work than the other typical jobs in a capitalist economy.

It is more about modern sharecropper capitalism I agree but WorryFree is the endgame of the sharing/gig economy, basically people fed up with hustling in the gig economy or sharecropper systems can become slaves and have their worries handled for them (dorm, food etc) almost like a mix of prison mixed with dorms at work like Foxconn.

In the movie Cassius "Cash" Green, the main character, works as a telemarketer and all the telemarketers are looking to unionize but there is little control or solace in any work in their look at modern society.

Throughout the movie, when the work is a complete hustle, WorryFree draws these people in by marketing that they don't have to worry about the hustle anymore, just become a slave to make the hustle easier. In the future of Sorry to Bother You, you can either be a sharecropper/hustler/sales or slave.

Here's a look at all the elements in the movie regarding modern economies and their drive for cheap labor and ultimately pliant slaves [1] Boots Riley, who created the movie and was previously a rapper, made one hell of a movie director/screenwriter debut, it is already a cult classic.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffewing/2018/07/13/could-sorr...

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