Vahan (YC S19) is helping low-skilled workers in India find jobs on WhatsApp | Hacker News Reader

Vahan (YC S19) is helping low-skilled workers in India find jobs on WhatsApp

techcrunch.com

52 pointsjmsflknr15 comments

On a different note, this everyone-jumping into the gig-economy of driving/riding for these services seem to be scary for their personal growth. Assume, I'm a bike-driver for Uber Eats (Today @ 2019), What would be I'm if i continue doing this after 5 years? It's the same Uber Eats driver. But if in a corporate set up, At least I can become something like a junior Accountant to Account or there's a career growth.

This growth seems completely invisible in this gig economy and during my conversation with a lot of recently joined Uber Drivers (in Bangalore, India) pretty much many are frustrated and trying to get into a different business that offers growth and stability.

Will this gig-economy destabilize global economy? I don't know. But I don't think a full-time Uber Eats driver is getting any benefit in long term.

I think the way that a lot of these companies (at least Uber, Doordash, Fiverr, ...) are positioning themselves is that this isn't supposed to be a full time job. It's either a side gig that can give you a bit of extra money to save/spend, or a launchpad to help get you to the next stage of your life. That's why I can't really empathize with everyone asking for better employee benefits and full time employment status because a gig is not supposed to be a job.

Sort of like how the food service industry can work. Good cash but easy to get trapped.

(EDIT: Fiverr is somewhat distinguishable because the skills gained are potentially transferable.)

...but it is. For a lot of people it's the only job they _can_ get. They don't have other options.

It's a fallacy. A lot of people who fall into this finds it lucrative. They are left-behind in the time of upskilling which they might have otherwise done had they weren't delivering food / driving uber. This way, they aren't up for the next game when this fails them (like Drones / Automated Cars). And I think that'll hit the economy.

Do gig economy companies hire from the contractor pool to train the next set of contractors? that is one way they could potentially offer some kind of growth.

Indian talents attracting foreign investors since last decade, combined with Jio reign to grow internet consumer by ten fold make me so much hopeful for success of startups of India. There were tons of talented "web era startups" 10 to 15 years ago that failed because of lack of affordable internet. Not now. I hope someday these startups go deeper to database, OS and hardware technology to make indigenous solutions.

Do WhatsApp's Terms of Service allow companies to build "unofficial" chatbots like this? Or is there an undocumented API available for select customers? How does one get access to this?

Yes, via the WhatsApp Business API explicitly mentioned in the article.

It looks like WhatsApp is providing APIs via these companies:

https://www.facebook.com/business/partner-directory/search?p...

Right up until they pull a <insert-social-giant> with their API access.

one has to wonder why whatsapp is not following a "wechat" model in India and take control over the Internet based services industry. Yes they are touting their "Payment" options, but a catalog of services all inside Whatsapp should be possible right?!

Also to note that whatsapp has around 400 million users in India which is like 80-90% of Indian internet population which gives them enormous opportunity to become market leaders ...

If they can't find a foothold in the payment option, how can they expect people to use it for anything else? I don't think the shotgun approach is right or efficient in this case.

yeah, my question is more about , why being lethargic in the approach..

Their payments offering needs to roll out better before they can try anything more.

It just got cleared by the RBI and will take another year of adoption (my prediction) before WhatsApp gets more serious about businesses and apps.

Their E2E promise also bites them a lot (So thankful that Bryan did this before getting acquired).

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