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posted by takyon on Wednesday July 15 2015, @12:57AM   Printer-friendly
from the sharing-criticism dept.

CNET, Business Insider, techcrunch and many others report on Hillary's beef with "on-demand/gig economy". Specifically:

"Many Americans are making extra money renting out a small room, designing websites, selling products they design themselves at home, or even driving their own car," Clinton said during a speech at the New School in New York City. "This on-demand, or so-called 'gig economy,' is creating exciting opportunities and unleashing innovation. But it's also raising hard questions about workplace protections and what a good job will look like in the future."

"Fair pay and fair scheduling, paid family leave and earned sick days, child care are essential to our competitiveness and growth," the former secretary of state said, referring to benefits not accorded to independent contractors such as drivers at Uber.

Meanwhile, others are quick to point that her "main super PAC decisively favored Uber over conventional cabs by a 25:1 margin" (doh, she didn't say Uber is bad, only that it is evil toward its empl... err... contractors) and Rand Paul tweets: "America shouldn't take advice on the sharing economy from someone who has been driven around in a limo for 30 years." (yeah, Dr Paul, zillions of male gynecologists were never pregnant, of course they know nothing about giving birth).


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2015, @03:41AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2015, @03:41AM (#209199)

    > Uber is a great idea, and the taxi industry really does need an overhaul like that, but employees need better treatment than this.

    Uber is half a great idea - the part about taking down the status quo has accreted to benefit the ownership class at the expense of drivers and riders. But the problematic half lies in the misleading term "sharing economy." This ain't no fucking sharing economy, this is Uber becoming a defacto monopoly in a position to extract maximum money from drivers and riders. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

    A scheme worthy of the term "sharing economy" would not have Uber sitting right in the middle of everything, tithing every transaction. Instead Uber would be one of many service providers selling services like payment processing, driver and rider authentication/ratings, market matching, etc to everybody.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2015, @08:36PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2015, @08:36PM (#209567)

    I'm no Uber fan, but I think you seriously misunderstand the term "monopoly"

  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday July 16 2015, @01:39AM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday July 16 2015, @01:39AM (#209737)

    Um, Uber is one of many service providers. Have you forgotten about their competitors Lyft and Sidecar, among others?

    Also, I fail to see how being a poorly-paid cab driver for a regular cab company is so much better than being a poorly-paid driver for Uber and Lyft. And if they're paid so poorly, why is it every time I've taken an Uber ride, it's been in some car quite a bit more expensive than my own, while every time I've taken a cab ride, it's been in some old piece of shit that I'm amazed still runs? Considering that with Uber, the driver owns the car, it looks like they aren't being paid too poorly.