If the billionaires behind Uber and Car2Go can offer “ride shares” and “car shares,” as in an earlier post, how about “the gig economy.” How positive and liberating that sounds!
“I don’t have a job, I have a gig!”, says the 20- or 30-something working hard with no tenure and no benefits. Benefits? Apparently it’s mainly the employers who have them under this system.
“Inside the Gig Economy” offers some insights from the FT Alphaville site.
FT Alphaville has been tracking the gig economy’s transformation into a neo-feudalism movement for a while now. What we’ve discovered is that those who use, love and defend the apps don’t always have a good understanding of what really contributes to their convenience. Many will do and say almost anything to protect them, whilst failing to grasp the key point of the criticism: none of this is necessarily sustainable or representative of a productivity efficiency.
(Should I [personally] care about this? I’ve been freelance since 1979, but the world I got established in is a totally different one from today’s. I may have made only a few hundred dollars a month when I was starting out, but if rent was $100 I was laughing.)
I think many people are reluctant free lancers. We’d rather just work somewhere for years and years and be taken care of.
Oh well. It was good for a few people for awhile at least…