How can you write an article like this without bringing up self driving cars? The end game for Uber is to get drivers out of the loop completely. So, this is just a temporary problem. It's going to get a whole lot worse if your plan in life is to drive vehicles around to make money.
This is not about the gig economy but simply about a lot of jobs becoming commodities before being automated away completely. Anyone with decent navigation solution in their car can compete with whatever awesome skills this medallion used to represent in terms of geographical knowledge. It's an outdated concept that dates back to the days that actually taxis were horse & carriage and it was kind of helpful to have some guarantees that the driver knew where to go. Not a thing any more.
This is not about the gig economy but simply about a lot of jobs becoming commodities before being automated away completely. Anyone with decent navigation solution in their car can compete with whatever awesome skills this medallion used to represent in terms of geographical knowledge. It's an outdated concept that dates back to the days that actually taxis were horse & carriage and it was kind of helpful to have some guarantees that the driver knew where to go. Not a thing any more.