The Gig Economy Was Always A Scam

Are we getting gigged to death?

The gig economy has revolutionized how we think about work, but not necessarily for the better. How have a bunch of multi-billion-dollar companies like Uber or Instacart so fundamentally changed our economy? Let’s find out in this Wisecrack Edition on The Gig Economy: What Went Wrong?

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Written by Amelia Buzzell
Hosted by Michael Burns
Directed by Michael Luxemburg
Edited by Henry Arrambide
Produced by Olivia Redden and Griffin Davis

Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound

#GigEconomy #Uber #Wisecrack

© 2022 Wisecrack / Omnia Media, Inc. / Enthusiast Gaming

[juliegolick]

I'm old enough to remember a time before these apps were even being marketed as "gigs". Like, the REALLY ORIGINAL marketing of AirBnB was "matching up people who happen to not need their house for a few weeks with people who will be in their city for a few weeks and need a place to stay." Uber was "find a driver / passenger who happens to be going in the same direction as you are". Ah, those truly naive, idealistic days...

[alexwixom]

Anytime someone asks you to be an "Independent Contractor" they're actually asking "Can I legally remove all of your employment rights?"

[cruddyholly]

Lyft driver here, as well as long time wisecrack viewer. Thank you for finally tackling this. I do my best to try and inform my passengers of the reality of working lyft and illustrating how, while i enjoy meeting and helping people, it requires a lot of discipline and is a very lonely job. My biggest complaint has and always will be how little connectivity with other drivers we have. They implemented a “group bonus” a while ago where we were able to communicate with a small group of other drivers and it didnt go well.

Going over my taxes, lyft now takes up to 60 percent of what the customer pays.

Also, for those thinking we are always picking up drunks, the truth is that a lot of people rely on lyft/uber to get to work in lieu of public transit. Even cities are taking advantage of the gig economy instead of funding their infrastructure.

[jdnelms]

As a freelance artist, I was part of the 'Gig Economy' long before it had a label. Even though I have a college degree and experience, most companies don't want to hire me full time. As a result, I'm turning 60, I owe thousands to the IRS and a local hospital for surgery in which I had no insurance due to the horrific cost of buying insurance a middle aged man. Still I consider myself lucky.

[OdinzSun]

Let’s not forget “bugs” in the apps that force workers to jump through hoops or rush picking up jobs. Uber normally gives a 10-15 second window to review a trip offer, and accept or decline it. Lately my app has been “bugging” out and giving me anywhere from 2-3 seconds to respond, essentially forcing me to auto accept rides without reviewing if I actually want to take them or not, and if I don’t auto accept in that small window then I’m punished on my acceptance rate. Sounds more like a feature that can be brushed off as a “bug”. Too easy to code something like that in and until these companies are forced to make their code entirely public there’s no way to rule out shady practices like this.

[CLObandit]

As a former gig economy worker, this really helped me understand myself a little more. I was doing gig work and training to be a professional actor, but slowly I found myself doing gig work more and more until I was too exhausted to train. After that, I had trouble settling back into a "regular job" and feel like I'm far behind my peers... ALL because I thought gig work was beneficial. Come to find out, like most things, it's so corrupt and exploitative.

[MacArawn]

Having prepared taxes professionally for many years, I have done many returns for people working in the gig economy. I think the best average monthly income I saw from an Uber or Lyft driver was about $500 after taxes and expenses. At least 2/3 of them were actually loosing money on their tax return when adding in depreciation on the car.

[mauricehopes]

The gig economy always seemed like a supplement to traditional work, not a replacement. Like you drive for uber a few hours after work a few days a week for some extra money. The gig economy is a terrible replacement for a regular job.

The fact that soo many people are using gig employment as their primary job signals that something is wrong. It seems like every year there are fewer and fewer jobs that pay a living wage. Eventually that could lead to massive societal problems and the collapse of major parts of the economy if a solution isn't found.

[redrighthandarts]

i was working at qualitest pharmaceuticals and we had a union scare so they shut down production for 2 days to hold meetings about how bad unions are. i waited till the end of the meetings to ask a question.
how many people in this room have worked for unions. i already knew what was going to happen.
the management team all raised their hands and a half dozen employees too. i asked would anyone like to say what union they worked for, and the employees hands went down. i said ok so the only people that have worked in unions are the only ones that have been able to work their way into a management position and now you same people are the only ones that don't want a union here, and you think we are going to just trust you at your word they they are bad, when you are literally the living example of how they aren't?
the rest of my short stay there was pretty bad after that... but my point stands.

[bogdan]

Sadly, I think we will gonna get apped to death.
A small example from my personal work related experience:
For starters, I struggled to get out of contracted company work and get a position based on an permanent type contract but even with all that covered, the pay is not on par with the money required to live a comfortable life.
I took the decision to enter the gig economy with a 4 hour part time job as a currier via bike.
1 week I worked in that environment, through freezing temperatures and snow, at the end of the week the speculated profits were very low compared with the required work.
The kicker is... from that speculated profits mentioned by the app, a 80% mark up was applied masked as taxes paid to the government and for the privilege to collaborate with the sub-company that I signed a contract with, the remainder of my share was just 20%.
At the end of the week, even if I used a bike, I ended up at a net loss by just buying a cup of cheap coffee from vending machines and a bottle of water every day.
I burned double the money I ended up with.
And don't even get me started if something happens with the transported goods, if the order is damaged or the client cancels the order before arrival, said order is payed out of your own pocket.
...
Even Death Stranding presented a more optimistic view regarding currier work and I wish I was joking.

[ohnoourtableitsbroken]

think you missed the part where union membership decline wasn't a spontaneous process in the US, there was immense effort put into union busting campaigns from the mid century until now by the ruling elite, meaning big business aided by politicians. The 40s saw the highest rate of union membership rate to date but that was a very hard won battle where union leadership and workers faced relentless opposition.

[bloodrain]

The "socializing risk while privatizing returns" tidbit was especially interesting in it's implications. It seems to extend to the start-up ideal, where direct compensation is replaced by promises of future returns on (non-executive) shares, while the reality is that most venture capital companies fail and those promises remain unfulfilled. More co-op business structures plz.

[StephenLeGresley]

The point of the "gig economy" was for businesses to be able to pay workers less and have no commitment to them long term.

It was marketed to workers as the "freedom" to move from one job to the other without constraint and with more flexibility. But what it ultimately led to was workers being exploited and having no recourse for protection like a more stable standard job would provide.

People in the gig economy have no job security, very little in the way of benefits and next to no legal protections. It's just another way for companies to use people as little more than drones.

[VibeBlind]

Calling them "contract workers" is a really loose definition considering Uber actively withholds information as punishment for refusing to accept bad rides and gives a hard 5 sec time limit to review the "contract"

[Dagnylokibarn]

As a disabled person I can’t afford wildly increasing costs but grocery delivery is so important to me. Just make a real price and im pretty sure a lot of people will pay it. One of the most important things you learn as a disabled person is spending more to live better is not a crime.

[hamyield]

I own 2 micro companies with some former colleagues. I did my stint of working for a massive company, and they ratcheted up the qualifications requirements on me while not paying me properly, and then when I used my own time and resources to get said qualifications I wasn't given an appropriate promotion that had already been discussed. My boss at the time (who was furious with the company) told me to set up as an external supplier instead, and this worked a treat. Suddenly I took work on my terms, but unlike gig workers - I myself got to dictate the price. It's been amazing and I would advocate it to everyone: if you have skills your companies want and you don't like the terms on which you are employed, make a niche for yourself and then go it alone. Other clients will soon follow. There's a risk, but by setting your own prices you can make sure you reap the appropriate reward.

When I talk to people in the pub about it, I compare it to the beer industry. Here in the UK, real ale was killed off in the 70s by lager, a product which was better in terms of both reliability and shelf life. Consumers flocked to it because it was consistent. Over time these bigger companies were acquired by 4 who all took part in a massive chase to the bottom, and by the 90s they were selling beer at a loss just to compete for market share. Then started the Campaign for Real Ale. Small brewers were given tax incentives to set up small scale operations making more traditional beers, but with the benefits of modern technology to improve consistency. Roll forwards 30 years and consumers are now spoiled with choice when it comes to real ale, and small brewers take a sizeable proportion of the available market share at the taps.

My old employer was the pub, the lager was the remnants of the old employees once the brain had been drained by people leaving, and the real ale is what happens when those with an expertise decide to set up as independent companies (microbreweries) offering services that the parent company struggles with or didn't want to invest in. When it's on offer, the client often wants the real ale, not the lager - and the pub has no option but to do a deal with the microbreweries in order to keep their customers happy and coming back for more ;)

[oceanwater]

Our working standards are evolving, just backwards. Soon companies will pay workers with digital scrip and pay for your room and board. But it’ll be done through an app so it won’t be seen as cruel and unlawful like company towns 100 years ago.

[randomcdude]

"Fun" fact, this practice has also pervaded the public sector. While seasonal positions have always been a thing in conservation land management, but it has gotten out of hand. Even scientists and program managers/coordinators are now hired as "seasonal" gig workers with none of the benefits afforded full timers and often explicitly excluded from them. I worked 3 "seasons" (9 mos of every year for 3 years) as an vegetation management scientist for a state land management agency. I collected, managed, processed, interpreted, and communicated vegetation population data for an entire state. I managed a field crew, developed relationships, developed Geographic Information System data processing models, built GIS information management structures and processes, and developed multi year management plans for each management unit surveyed. Not every unit was surveyed each year. I developed a new way to visualize weed distributions at a management unit. I presented at professional meeting representing the state organization just like my full time counter parts. I had full time colleagues that did essentially the same job as me just on a different land classification type or a different ecosystem. All of this basically from scratch as the previous seasonal had no way to transmit the institutional knowledge that was imperative to the position. Everything I developed has likely fallen apart after I left after my final season. I made an hourly wage sure, but it was far below what the specialized skills required for the job were worth. I once saw a sign advertising a pay range which bracketed my wage at a car wash. I could make the same pay with less required travel at a car wash. One of my field techs saw a sign at a Subway sandwich shop hiring people starting at their wage. I was not the only gig/seasonal scientist coordinating a long term legally required program (some state required, some federally). The archeologist, the ornithologist, the and several others were also on a seasonal gig workers viewed as disposable and interchangeable. Required to create training materials and detailed documentation as we went so that someone else could pick up and do our job if we didn't return the following season (which was preferred and encouraged). We crammed 12 mos of work into 9 and then scrambled to get rolling again the next "season". There was zero negotiating power or ability to improve things seeing as if you made too many waves they could just hire someone else the following year. The gig economy mentality with all it's "cost savings" (read exploitation) is just too tempting for the higher ups and state legislatures responsible for such programs. I heard it justified so often as "it is a great experience/resume builder" (for what other position with such specialized qualifications?) or "young people love the freedom of seasonal work!" (nevermind that many of us had MS or PhDs and were in our 30s or older some with children). "But we GOT to do what we love and see such beautiful places... while working 10-12 hour days outside in the dead of summer for 40+ hours a week for carwash or sandwich "artist" And that is how gig economy ideology scorched my soul and made me the jaded former conservation worker/public servant I am today. I wanted to do my part to help conserve nature for the benefit of every one, but now I just watch it deteriorate with the knowledge that it was just too costly to manage it well. Remember, follow your dreams kids and maybe one day you too can watch them decay into something nightmarish and soul crushing.

[D.Jay.]

Uber takes such a huge cut of the fee. The only way they are "struggling" is by paying the "leadership" to much and making bad faith investments.

[ramontavaresdacruz]

"We're increasingly being taught to expect less and less from our employers", funny part about this is the fact most of us already didn't expect anything from them for decades now