Comment by amelius

The gig economy is based on (digital) platforms, where the platform owner makes the rules. I used the example of Apple's platform, because this is a community of mostly developers. The theory of the platform economy has not been fully developed yet, but some patterns are quite clear. The power of a platform owner where the barrier of entry is very high is of course greater than when the barrier of entry is low. Airbnb is technically just a CRUD website that links supply and demand, while Apple holds much more power. We should be very careful in assuming that Apple will not abuse its power to a greater extent. In absence of competition, many of us might very well end up as low-pay gig workers.