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Comment by Tinyyy | Hacker News Reader

I guess the algorithm will just increase the pay for workers not on strike then, due to the decreased supply.

Which is why strikes like this rarely work: it's a prisoners dilemma. The reason why they work for say, factory workers is that those unions are much stronger, and there's a lot of social (and sometimes physical) pressure not to cross the picket line. Hell, I'm sure there are a lot of workers who are trying to convince people to strike, but won't themselves. And after all, doing otherwise would be irrational.

Yes it is definitely harder to organize a distributed workforce, but your mathematical modelling is extremely simplistic.

> And after all, doing otherwise would be irrational.

...Please...

- Psycological harm results from trying to recruit strikers when you are a secret scab. Unless you're a psycopath

- You could organize a protest on the day you are striking to confirm each others loyalty

- You might already know other people who work for the app even if you don't work with them (e.g. if you learned of the gig work through word-of-month). Those people you already have social connections with.

Saying it's hard is valid. Saying it's impossible without real evidence reeks of the stereotype of the freshman straight out of econ 101 who thinks they now understand all human behavior.

I don't remember anyone saying it was impossible. All I said was that it was irrational. But people do irrational things pretty consistently, so irrationality isn't going to stop (some) people.

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