Comment by redeeman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by redeeman | Hacker News Reader

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> I dunno what you consider that. But it's not like, an arrangement in which the worker seems to opting into this because they think it's a good deal out of their plethora of options. They do it because they are, in their words, desperate.

and is his situation better if he cannot do doordash?

or to rephrase it. suppose I dont like mowing my lawn, but I dont want to pay what it costs for a professional lawn care service to do it. For the sake of argument, say the lawn care service charges $200, but I would only pay $20.

A desperate guy comes by, needs $10 for a mcdonalds meal or he goes hungry, he also needs $1000 to save towards getting an apartment. and i say "give you 20 bucks to mow my lawn", he figures he kinda has no choice, he does it "out of desperation", I "take advantage of him".

now suppose everyone in town has same policy as me, and its through lawndash.

Is the desperate guy worse off? how exactly are things better if i said "well.. I would pay you $20, but well... it almost seem cruel not to pay $200, so im gonna pass on that. Good luck getting a bite to eat though!" ?

Do you not understand that if some services are too expensive they will not exist? Would you pay $1000 for a 10 min busride to/from work(each trip)? no.

delivery of food has a certain price, if it is beyond that, it simply will not be done, and the gig workers are no worse off.

seeing as how this is the case, nobody is being taken advantage of. Its a choice, it may not be much, but he can just say "no" and be 100% as well off as if proud communist unions had their way and forbade these jobs.

The question isn't whether he's worse off or not. I don't know why you're moving the goalposts. It seems obvious that if you are presented with only two choices, one between $3 an hour and one between $0 and hour, that $3 an hour is better. The post is about whether they are being taken advantage of.

> Do you not understand that if some services are too expensive they will not exist?

No please explain more to me about how the fundamentals of economics and business work.

I will not extend a 100% valid offer for you to come clean my entire house, i will pay you $100 for it.

have I now taken advantage of you?

you CAN say no!

There's a reason it's called "splitting hairs" and isn't generally looked upon favorably.

I suspect you would not make this argument if the prospective employee were a four year old child and the service to be rendered was sweeping your chimney. But according to what principle do you distinguish the two cases?

I would also rather a 4 year old have $20 for working than starving (in some fictional scenario where those are the two options). Given such an option the only reason I would refuse the child the work would be for legal liability reasons.

IMO if a child is so desperate for food that they must work, then pretty much all other options have failed, and they should be allowed to do it.

I can tell you I have had children ask me for work before. When I was struggling to pay for my own family, I had to refuse them work. Instead they simply stole things from me when I wasn't home. That is illegal too, although stealing from people tends to get you put in jail even faster, so I can tell you there seems to be kids in America where this is a real thing it just ends up being the 'work' they do is something illegal since they're not allowed a legal channel to work.

Well you’re consistent, I give you that.

What I would say is that collectively we decide on the rules of society— what conditions are acceptable and so on. And just as we have decided in the US that it is unacceptable to allow four year olds to sweep chimneys, so too can we decide that, in the words of Franklin Roosevelt, “no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”

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