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And, the genius of Uber is:
- people enjoy driving, so it doesn't feel like work, so why not get "paid" even if it's barely break-even for the risk and actual expenses for doing something you enjoy?
- people are stupid about what they call "sunk costs" - your car is only a sunk cost if you are never going to replace it, tires wear by the mile, as do timing belts, alternators, water pumps, and all the other things that are going to need service before you send the car to the junk heap. Even the window seals and other things not normally serviced wear faster when exposed to driving as opposed to being parked, particularly if you park in a shelter.
What's missing from the above analysis is also "- people learn from experience" and "- people aren't going to get out of bed, if their cut of the action is too low."
Let's consider that first bullet point. People learn from experience. I doubt, for example, that JoeMerchant learned of the many costs of car ownership from a class or via hearsay. Similarly, how is one to learn the many niggling details of the cost of being their own employer (or an employer of others!), if they never experience it?
It's no secret that Uber has massive turnover, in part due to the heavy competition by drivers who are not fully clued in. So what? That's thousands of drivers who each year will learn what competition and costs mean at low cost to the rest of us (we get a lot of cheap rides out of this, remember?). And as bonus, they'll get a piece of JoeMerchant's hard-earned tax dollars and we get a quality bellyache from a guy who wouldn't have cared in the least otherwise, if Uber weren't somehow peripherally involved.
Let's consider another example which occasionally is seen in universal basic income (UBI) arguments. When people don't have to work, they'll instead pour their time into hobbies which somehow will be better for us than the work would be. We'll get like one or two orders of magnitude more awesome guitar solos. That surely more than compensates for having fewer people who actually know how to do stuff that keeps societies functioning, right?
That's also ignoring that most peoples' hobbies will be watching porn and other push media on the internet.
How does one learn to manage their time, or manage other people, if they never do it? The nuts and bolts of particular industries? How to help people? The huge thing missed is that all this work has created a huge population of people who know what they are doing. Take it away and you take away the competence as well.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 31 2019, @02:59PM (3 children)
My opinion here is that making most of humanity worthless to employ is not a priority.
Unless, of course, that is not my perspective.
For what reason?
If it costs more to find and employ that employee than the value you get out of the employee, then it's not going to happen. Struggling is better in that situation.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday October 31 2019, @03:42PM (2 children)
When their work isn't needed, why should they waste time learning how to work? When it is needed, they can be trained.
Tell me more.
It should be obvious, unless you don't you like money?
Not something that is even close to happening often in western capitalism. Hence my reference to the headroom to increase workers' wages.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 31 2019, @04:03PM
"When". You're begging the question. Meanwhile, as I noted, reality isn't fitting the narrative.
First, I already told you enough to steer you away from that straw man. But let's consider your post anyway:
This is merely a summary of someone's interests in a narrow area. One could similarly summarize the employee's perspective of the same situation:
It's unhelpful because that doesn't in any way describe the actual dynamics of a market where multiple interests conflict and are resolved to mutual agreement. Noth sides have to compromise in order for employment to happen.
Employer cooties aren't magic. Just because they want more doesn't mean that they get more. After all, if that were true, then we wouldn't have seen the above two thirds of the world getting 30% increase in income over a two decade period!
So does the employer. You spoke of other perspectives and then just chose one.
Opportunity costs of things like minimum wage are often invisible to those who don't look for them. I think a great example of this is the depopulation of Puerto Rico. There's millions of people missing because they moved out.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 01 2019, @01:14PM