Comment by geofft | Hacker News Reader

Comment by geofft | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

One interesting idea I've heard recently is gift cards - essentially a way for people with enough disposable income to sustain gig workers across a shutdown. I know I'll be back at my local coffeeshop and taqueria as soon as I can. I know I'll be taking Lyft again. I know I'll be wandering through bookstores and going to theaters and so forth. And I'm not spending that money right now because I'm staying at home.

If I can buy gift cards for these sorts of services and that money can be used to fund workers, that's going to help them with cashflow. There's still going to be this several-week gap of lattes and tortas that went unpurchased, but it can be smoothed out a little bit.

There are logistical difficulties to sort out here to make sure money gets to the right place, including that food service workers rely on tips and that gig workers (like Lyft drivers) aren't the platform (like Lyft itself). So probably this would have to be worked into the concept of a gift card to make it solve the problem properly.

That's an interesting idea. Do you know if any store or operation is trying that?

I think it might need some additional promotion to work, in particular with feedback to the customers - otherwise it turns into a prisonner's dilemma situation. If I'm about to spend the next few months burning through my savings, I'll not be willing to buy gift cards to support a local coffee store unless I know others are doing the same; otherwise I take a meaningful hit on my savings while not ultimately helping the business at all. I wonder if such businesses could organize a Patreon/Indiegogo-style funding, declaring e.g. "we need $50000/month to keep our venue and 5 employees", with a visible progress bar?

Supporting gig workers with gift cards might be tough also because AFAIK they're considered a disposable and easy-to-replace resource, often not directly affiliated with the companies they serve most.

Right, I think this is specifically marketed with people with steady jobs (either people with WFHable jobs like tech workers, or people who are going into work anyway like doctors and retail workers) who are continuing to earn their usual income during the lockdown. If you're not getting paid yourself, it doesn't make as much sense for you to be a buyer.

At least where I am, enough of the customers of independent coffee shops / food places / stores / etc. are people with steady, WFHable jobs that it seems like simply managing cashflow and making sure it gets to the right people is helpful in and of itself.

I don't have a good answer to the gig-worker problem (well, my preferred option is government-run safety nets; the other option is regulations saying gig employment should be disallowed, but those have their own problems), but I want to throw it out there for brainstorming. One potential option is the platforms offer zero-interest loans to their workers, e.g., "here's $1000 now, but we'll want $100 back per month when this is all over, if you continue driving for us we'll automatically take $100 of your earnings per month, if you don't you'll just owe us." Of course many platforms can afford to do that on their own, but they could also fund the program with gift cards from customers. That is, there are two levels of gift cards here, one from customer to platform, one from platform to worker.

That's a good idea. Gift cards are effectively interest-free loans, so they give you a way to "loan money" to local businesses which can later be "paid back" by cashing in on the goods and services.

I don't know how well it'd work out for Uber/Lyft and "Uber for X", though.

Of course, following the loan analogy, there's a risk of default. If your local taqueria goes under before things return to normal, all of those burrito bucks you bought are effectively worthless.

If they go bankrupt, yes. If they simply decide to go out of business in advance of running out of money (e.g., the owner is like "I've been thinking of retiring and now is a pretty good excuse"), write the terms of it so there's some obligation to refund the card.

That said, there have been enough Patreons/GoFundMes for local businesses, so I think that people understand that going bankrupt despite best efforts is a risk and enough people are willing to pay anyway to try to keep their local coffee shop open.

Hopefully you aren't buying enough burrito bucks to put yourself underwater :P Yet, if everyone buys some, that could still be enough to keep the business from going underwater.

Tbh I'm not gonna buy a giftcard for a place that has a high chance of going under in a few months.

Yes, I know that can help cause it but still. We're staring down the face of a global recession and I'm got a family to look after.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com