Gig Economy Scam

The fastest growing category of jobs aren't jobs at all. They're called "gigs." Entire economies were kept up and running during the pandemic by workers whose schedules are controlled by apps. The problem is that these workers are being exploited in a way that's maybe not readily apparent.

These "jobs" aren't jobs, and workers aren't employees; they're "gigs" and "gig workers." And the online platforms whose clients are served by these gig workers are registered as technology companies. All this is done for good reasons, and I'll try to explain them here. Let's look at Uber and Lyft for example. For anyone making use of their services they appear to be a taxi-firms or transportation companies, but for years they've emphasized that they are technology companies. And technically this is correct: they are the owners and managers of digital online platforms that allow millions of willing transportation providers (drivers) and transportation consumers (riders) to hook up.

If they were to call themselves transportation companies, they'd have to abide by all the rules for road-based businesses; tech firms have no such burden. And their workers would have been regular employees who'd have to be paid a wage with all the benefits attached, like worker-safety and healthcare benefits. By just providing an online digital platform to connect individual contractors with customers, these gig firms circumvent all of that. In 2018 there was a flood of reports about cab drivers and limo drivers committing suicide after they lost their livelihood to the ride-sharing companies:

For cab drivers like Uwazie, the culprit in Chicago, as in New York, it's ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft that have revolutionized the industry and siphoned off customers, while not having to comply with the same stringent regulations as taxi drivers.
_{source: NBC News}

As if that wasn't terrible enough, that same year we saw the surge of reports saying that Uber and Lyft contractors committed suicide as well. Just take a peek at this article: Uber driver who jumped in front of train was deeply in debt. It's not just that Uber and Lyft drivers are paid so little that a full work week leaves them with an income just scratching the bottom-side of poverty, it's also that they start to feel and know that they're not seen as human beings by the owners of the apps:

“The companies don’t really look at us as human beings, and they just consider us as profit,” says Ben Valdez, a driver and volunteer coordinator for the group Rideshare Drivers United. “Once everything started to slow down, I was making... I think it was around $85 dollars for 12 hours.”
_{source: CNBC}

That's from an article with the title "Uber and Lyft rides are more expensive than ever because of a driver shortage." Yes prices have increased 92% between January 2018 and July 2021 according to that article, but maybe that's not just because of a driver shortage. You see, Uber, Lyft and almost all the other countless gig-firms have never been profitable. That's for a good reason as well; the idea is to provide services so cheap as to corner the market for any particular service. And when all the competition is eradicated, that's when they have the power, the monopoly that allows them to set the prices all by themselves. These companies are backed by billions of dollars from investors and hedge funds, and they all play the long game knowing that their day will come soon enough. Maybe that day has come already, and that's why their prices have taken another leap upwards these past months...

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