Comment by rconti | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rconti | Hacker News Reader

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In order for your framework to, well, work, you have to make a lot of assumptions. Things like:

* Jobs are not sticky (eg, there are 0 switching costs once you are 'stuck' at an employer)

* Employers cannot change their character or terms (eg, it was a good place to work yesterday, now it has become a bad place to work)

* Employers cannot drag an entire industry or employment segment down (eg, race to the bottom)

* Employers cannot do anti-competitive/restrictive things (eg, you must drive this kind of car, you must work these hours, you cannot work for a competitor, you cannot negotiate on the terms of your pay structure)

I'm generally (and historically; eg, younger me) very sympathetic to the idea of freedom to contract for any terms.

However, it is not a zero-sum game. A previously-unemployed person does not become employed and then be magically better for life. That would assume they would have been unemployed forever had this business not come along, and it would also assume that this business cannot become worse to work for over time or limit one's prospects.

I used to be very opposed to the concept of wage floors, however what's changed my mind has been the impact of unemployment to drag down wages. As long as there is >0 unemployment, there can and will be a race to the bottom in terms of the wages and conditions of marginal employment. This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if the employment market was a fixed pie (again, zero sum game), but that's not the way the real world works.

Excellent list. Another thing I'd add is size asymmetry. Markets and negotiations work best when deal participants are of roughly equal power. That's rare with labor; people tend to have 1, maybe 2 jobs, while companies tend to have a lot more employees. Bad-actor companies can devote a lot more attention and effort to screwing people over than workers can to figuring out the situation.

That means if we want optimal outcomes, we need things like labor regulation and unions to balance the asymmetries.

I think you brought up some interesting points. You increased the complexity of the model by adding new dimensions. But you did not explain how including these would change the conclusion. Does assuming the switching cost makes a gig work opportunity a net negative for those seeking a job? The pros and cons should be quantified somehow, but that is probably almost impossible to do. In that case I am inclined to make sure as many people as possible have the opportunity to work, since I believe that not being able to be a productive member of a society is very bad for a man.

Are we discussing a model? Or the real world?

We don't have to speculate about the experienced reality of gig workers. We can just ask them. Failing that, read any of the many exposés and reports.

Be very careful talking about competition or switching costs with gig work.

It is very easy to get and quit a gig job.

None that I know of restrict you via noncompetes.

> it is not a zero-sum game

> does not become employed and then be magically better for life

> would have been unemployed forever had this business not come along

That's what makes it non zero sum. The marginal worker is better off, because this new marginal employer exists. Any down-the-line employer which isn't this one will be worse by definition.

> This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if the employment market was a fixed pie

Doesn't make sense. Either error in logic or I can't parse your final point.

Uber specifically helped arrange loans to buy a car, using the money the driver would make with Uber to justify they had ability to pay. They then unilaterally reduced drivers profit by close to half, leaving those who bought a rapidly-depreciating asset facing a need to work 12-15 hour days to make payments.

That’s not exactly “easy to quit”.

To be fair, that's an indictment of false advertising, monopolistic power, and predatory lending far more than it is about gig work.

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