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Comment by randomdata | Hacker News Reader

Yet the canonical example of gig work is the Uber driver – a job that requires a tremendous amount of knowledge and skill.

The trouble, economically, is that most people have had a vested interest in acquiring that particular knowledge and skill, making it common, and thus, by the properties of supply and demand, not terribly valuable.

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I'm having trouble parsing this comment... if facetious not following the point. If not, what is the knowledge and skill outside of having a driver's license and the ability to work a smartphone?

What are you asking, exactly? Driving clearly requires a lot of knowledge and skill, from the workings of vehicles to the rules of the road, and a lot of practice to be able to develop the skill necessary to move the vehicle around in the framework. Nobody is born able to drive and nowadays most jurisdictions require a lengthy apprenticeship under another experienced driver before one is able to move into being licensed to drive on their own accord because history has proven that it takes a long time to develop the necessary skills. Even then, it is questionable if drivers are skilled enough, but such is life.

Indeed, it is a common skill[1], at least in car-centric North America where there has been a strong incentive for all to learn those skills. That makes it not particularly valuable to offer as a service. Why pay someone to do work you can, in most cases, just as easily do yourself? It has to be quite cheap for you to consider it. But that's something else entirely.

[1] Albeit a dwindling one. While ~85% of American adults have their driver's license, only ~60% of 18-year-olds do, down from ~80% in the 1980s. The youth today are backing away from obtaining this particular skill as compared to the past.

Speaking English (or any other language) is an even bigger, more complex skill than driving - and we take it for granted too. Basic electrical service in houses is the result of a huge effort to build infrastructure. There are many examples of these "complex but ubiquitous" resources.

Nobody, at least nobody who is thinking straight, would claim that someone who can speak English, particularly one who can do so fluently, doesn't have immense knowledge and skill in that area. It may not be an economically valuable skill due to the ubiquity relative to the need, but that, again, is something else entirely.

There's also a big difference between being able to just speak English, and being employable in a job that focuses on use of English as a skill... like writing a TV show or a book

I’d wager that someone who learns English as a second language has a better technical understanding of the language than the average native speaker, even if they don’t sound as natural speaking it.

> ... is the Uber driver – a job that requires a tremendous amount of knowledge and skill

My doctor friends who studied for about 10 years would like a word...

What would they like to say? The data suggests that it also takes approximately 10 years to form the skills one needs to drive. Hence why insurance rates typically decline to a meaningful degree when one turns 25.

But, like all things in life, there are tradeoffs. While road safety would no doubt improve if everyone had to spend 10 years learning and developing driving skills, there would be a lot of social consequences to keeping people from driving until so late in life. Consequences we have not been willing to accept.

We could just as easily allow medical professionals to practice without such lengthy requirements. Anyone can become a shoddy doctor. It is not hard job to do poorly. But we've selected different tradeoffs there. It is not as socially impactful if a doctor can't practice until later in life, and is arguably more socially beneficial to see them wait until their skills have really developed.

> Hence why insurance rates typically decline to a meaningful degree when one turns 25.

Germans, for example, typically learn driving much later than Americans. Would be useful to check the data to see whether their insurance rates drop at around the same age, or around the same years of driving experience.

Because the obvious null hypothesis to explain your observation of insurance rates is that young people just take more risks.

Age does affect it yes. And it starts dropping earlier:

    drivers between the ages of 25 and 67 can expect a discount on the average claim requirement - the insurance premium drops thanks to age being taken into account. Drivers aged 27 to 41 receive the largest discounts of 26 percent, while those aged 63 to 67 benefit from discounts of 6 percent

So while Germans start driving later they also drop rates earlier. And the older you get the less you get your rates dropped based on age! Around 45 is where you benefit the most from your age for rates.

But older people according to this also have the advantage of having a longer driving record and if you didn't have an accident in that time it can counteract the bad effect of advancing age on your rates.

https://www-gdv-de.translate.goog/gdv/themen/mobilitaet/so-w...

Thanks!

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