The labor market is never free, because living isn't free - almost every participant is coerced.
We're all trading time and willpower for money. If the gig economy has a poor ROI, people can end up in poverty traps - stuck working a couple shitty jobs because they need the money to survive, but the jobs consume so much time/will-power that they can't pursue alternatives.
This becomes a huge issue for Uber-style companies where workers buy their own tools (cars), in exchange for uncertain per-trip wages with no benefits. They're called "contractors", but realistically what can they do if Uber "fires" them? Work for Lyft? Same shit, different logo.
Uber's practices are outright deceptive - they compare very optimistic ridesharing wages to hourly employee wages, without considering their car ownership/fuel/taxes/maintenance/insurance costs. I did some napkin math a while back which suggested quite a few drivers are actually losing money in the long-run (primarily maintenance and lower auto resale value).
We're all trading time and willpower for money. If the gig economy has a poor ROI, people can end up in poverty traps - stuck working a couple shitty jobs because they need the money to survive, but the jobs consume so much time/will-power that they can't pursue alternatives.
This becomes a huge issue for Uber-style companies where workers buy their own tools (cars), in exchange for uncertain per-trip wages with no benefits. They're called "contractors", but realistically what can they do if Uber "fires" them? Work for Lyft? Same shit, different logo.
Uber's practices are outright deceptive - they compare very optimistic ridesharing wages to hourly employee wages, without considering their car ownership/fuel/taxes/maintenance/insurance costs. I did some napkin math a while back which suggested quite a few drivers are actually losing money in the long-run (primarily maintenance and lower auto resale value).