<story><title>FTC to crack down on companies taking advantage of gig workers</title><url>https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/09/ftc-crack-down-companies-taking-advantage-gig-workers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>VoodooJuJu</author><text>The grandparent deserves a good rebuttal, and I don&amp;#x27;t think this is very good. This comment is effectively saying that the gig worker is in fact &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; a free agent by using analogies like slavery and indentured servitude, but these analogies don&amp;#x27;t map well to the gig worker&amp;#x27;s economic position.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m going to second the GP&amp;#x27;s request for a convincing argument, as I&amp;#x27;ve also yet to see one.</text></item><item><author>ep103</author><text>Its comments like this that have caused me to really lose faith in the quality of conversation on Hacker News.&lt;p&gt;By your logic above, an indentured servitude would count as a &amp;quot;not being taken advantage of&amp;quot; and by implication, reasonable moral form of employment.&lt;p&gt;Each of the following questions in your final paragraph are similarly shallow.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; People are not agents of free will, and any sub-utopic framework they have to participate in is immoral?&lt;p&gt;This is a straw man argument to its core.  No one is, or has suggested that all labor should be abolished unless it meets a utopian ideal.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Even if that&amp;#x27;s the case&lt;p&gt;It is not the case&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I&amp;#x27;d like to see the argument that those people who chose and choose to work at uber have worse outcomes than they otherwise would&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, this is the same argument that was used in favor of slavery.</text></item><item><author>kryogen1c</author><text>I have yet to see a convincing argument, here on HN or elsewhere, about how these companies are taking advantage of workers.&lt;p&gt;Most of us are old enough to have seen these companies spring into existence, so here are the steps:&lt;p&gt;1) 100% of people are employed or unemployed. Uber (for example) doesn&amp;#x27;t exist&lt;p&gt;2) uber starts existing, some previously unemployed people and some previously employed people start working for uber&lt;p&gt;3) those people that willingly took those jobs are being taken advantage of&lt;p&gt;What is the principal that justifies 3? People are not agents of free will, and any sub-utopic framework they have to participate in is immoral? Even if that&amp;#x27;s the case, I&amp;#x27;d like to see the argument that those people who chose and choose to work at uber have worse outcomes than they otherwise would.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>frereubu</author><text>I didn’t read this as a rebuttal, it’s pointing out the logical fallacies in the structure of the GP’s argument, so criticising it for not offering a rebuttal is slightly missing the point. They certainly aren’t saying that Uber drivers are in an identical situation to slaves.</text></comment>
<story><title>FTC to crack down on companies taking advantage of gig workers</title><url>https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/09/ftc-crack-down-companies-taking-advantage-gig-workers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>VoodooJuJu</author><text>The grandparent deserves a good rebuttal, and I don&amp;#x27;t think this is very good. This comment is effectively saying that the gig worker is in fact &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; a free agent by using analogies like slavery and indentured servitude, but these analogies don&amp;#x27;t map well to the gig worker&amp;#x27;s economic position.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m going to second the GP&amp;#x27;s request for a convincing argument, as I&amp;#x27;ve also yet to see one.</text></item><item><author>ep103</author><text>Its comments like this that have caused me to really lose faith in the quality of conversation on Hacker News.&lt;p&gt;By your logic above, an indentured servitude would count as a &amp;quot;not being taken advantage of&amp;quot; and by implication, reasonable moral form of employment.&lt;p&gt;Each of the following questions in your final paragraph are similarly shallow.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; People are not agents of free will, and any sub-utopic framework they have to participate in is immoral?&lt;p&gt;This is a straw man argument to its core.  No one is, or has suggested that all labor should be abolished unless it meets a utopian ideal.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Even if that&amp;#x27;s the case&lt;p&gt;It is not the case&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I&amp;#x27;d like to see the argument that those people who chose and choose to work at uber have worse outcomes than they otherwise would&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, this is the same argument that was used in favor of slavery.</text></item><item><author>kryogen1c</author><text>I have yet to see a convincing argument, here on HN or elsewhere, about how these companies are taking advantage of workers.&lt;p&gt;Most of us are old enough to have seen these companies spring into existence, so here are the steps:&lt;p&gt;1) 100% of people are employed or unemployed. Uber (for example) doesn&amp;#x27;t exist&lt;p&gt;2) uber starts existing, some previously unemployed people and some previously employed people start working for uber&lt;p&gt;3) those people that willingly took those jobs are being taken advantage of&lt;p&gt;What is the principal that justifies 3? People are not agents of free will, and any sub-utopic framework they have to participate in is immoral? Even if that&amp;#x27;s the case, I&amp;#x27;d like to see the argument that those people who chose and choose to work at uber have worse outcomes than they otherwise would.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jorvi</author><text>Gig work normalizes the loss of the overall labor protections &amp;#x2F; amenities that were wrought so hard during the 19th and 20th century.&lt;p&gt;Here in The Netherlands flexible labor and temporary rental contracts were introduced last decade, they were meant to increase the fluidity of both markets and take up a small amount of overall contracts, but have started to dominate both of them. Being on either basically erodes any certainty you could have had as a foundation to build your life on.&lt;p&gt;Gig work is even worse than flexible contracts. Not only can you be ditched at any moment, in many ways you are considered self-employed which strips you of so many protections normally afforded to you. And whereas self-employed software developers (read: freelancers) are in an extremely powerful economic position, the usual gig worker has almost zero leverage. ‘Nuff said.</text></comment>