It's neither accurate nor constructive to make it seem like there's an evil villain in these companies who's ACTIVELY designing/rigging the system to screw over the poor.
The reality is that these companies are just being driven by profits. And, one way to maximize profits is to minimize costs by offering fewer benefits to workers.
This outcome has a lot more to do with capitalism as a whole than the gig economy.
If you are a proponent for worker's rights and mandated benefits then by all means argue for that. But, please don't make it seem like there's some evil person on the other side that you're seeking justice against. That doesn't exist.
There are villains in this. They're the people who exploit, who maximize profits on the backs of the poor instead of treating their employees like human beings and trying to not grind them into powder.
Maybe capitalism has problems and it's not just the "gig economy"? This is creeping towards an epiphany--maybe choosing to participate in capitalism at a high level rather than mitigate its excesses makes you complicit? Maybe you own what you do and when what you do hurts people, you own that harm and that hurt?
Yes, this does characterize many HN-sanctioned heroes. Too bad. Maybe they should instead be decent.
Nobody forced these companies to exist. If you can't do business without bloodying the poor who are your "human resources," maybe you shouldn't do business.
If the legal standard finds they are employees the added cost is just more incentive to automate the jobs away completely. Soon enough all these terrible horrible jobs you speak of (which every driver I’ve spoken to is happy to have, usually having quit some other full-time employment to do gig work instead), soon enough all these jobs simply won’t exist at all.
You are incentivized to hurt people and steal their money if you reasonably think you can get away with it. That fact being true does not mean that actually hurting people for your benefit isn't evil. There are lots of actions that you are theoretically incentived to take, but it _is_ evil to do so.
Every time I read arguments like this (the threat of increased cost leading to more automation), I just further believe that some sort of guaranteed basic income is what we need to be moving toward. Ideally in the utopian future we automate "all" jobs away to the point where we have so few jobs compared to the number of people, and obviously people will still need to be able to tend to their basic needs and then some. Owning the automation just cannot mean you get all the profits from it.
The reality is that these companies are just being driven by profits. And, one way to maximize profits is to minimize costs by offering fewer benefits to workers.
This outcome has a lot more to do with capitalism as a whole than the gig economy.
If you are a proponent for worker's rights and mandated benefits then by all means argue for that. But, please don't make it seem like there's some evil person on the other side that you're seeking justice against. That doesn't exist.