This was a really interesting read. I used to ghostwrite full-tine through Fiverr and I’ve done similar work through Upwork. I currently shop for instacart part-time. It was fun to read a book about the gig economy when I’ve done so much gig work. The book covered many of the issues workers in the gig economy face. Also some of the challenges the tech companies face. It was overall very anti gig work (which I am not) but the author made an attempt to provide a balanced perspective and I respect that. There was one worker who had a happy and successful freelance career (although he was a skilled software developer, so did play into the larger narrative of gig work exploiting unskilled workers). The book did cover many of the problems I faced myself as a freelancer. Upwork really is a race to the bottom. But then I switched to Fiverr and had much better luck. If people don’t want to take gigs through a platform they don’t have to. Companies will change their ways if they can’t find enough people to perform the services they offer. ( )

This is a fascinating and sobering read about the gig economy and the future of work. ( )

Sarah Kessler does a great job of reporting on the impact of the gig economy. I told myself that I wanted to review just about every book I read in 2020, but honestly, although this book was good and a quick read, a week or so after having read it I find it mostly forgettable. ( )

Gig economy is about the use of assets in different ways. I can give two quick examples of that. Think about Uber which allows people to turn their private car into a temporary taxi. The common business model for a taxi is quite different. It used to be that taxi had to be a registered vehicle, you have to pay to get the license to become a taxi driver, buy insurance and so on. Now, the technology which has allowed cars to become taxis is part of what explains why people are temporarily becoming taxi drivers. The second thing which is happening around the world is Airbnb which allows your house to temporarily become a hotel room. Then it allows you to become, temporarily, a hotel owner. This is a really radical new development and it’s actually great because it means we could have much higher capital efficiency. Instead of all these cars lying idle, now they are turned out to be taxis. And when a house which lies empty because its owner is on holiday could be used as a hotel. This is a fantastic development which helps us in getting a much higher utilisation rate out of our assets and it will increase its efficiency greatly.

Next, the gig economy allows everybody to be their own boss and play by their own rules. It is an economy where you have apps that give out jobs like Uber or Airbnb. Workers are changed into freelancers and generally speaking it’s a shift from full-time employment, whether that could be contract workers or temp workers or other things that aren’t traditional jobs. Now it’s much easier to hire a freelancer than it’s ever been before. There are online platforms offering easy ways to search for workers. You can keep track of these people, moreover, if you hire a freelancer you can also watch a video of all the hours that they were working for you on their desktop to make sure that they didn’t do something different while they were supposed to be working for you.

We all know that flexible works have some perks. Some people become more entrepreneurial, they become more creative than in the traditional office. We also know that these jobs, generally, don’t come with sick leave, vacation leave or retirement benefits, healthcare or any other workplace supports. And for many doing this kind of work leaves... (if you like to read my full review please visit my blog https://leadersarereaders.blog/2019/02/21/gigged) ( )