Can the Sharing Economy Provide Good Jobs?

[lektrode]

Re: Can the Sharing Economy Provide Good Jobs?

Tolls and ceiling-less congestion pricing aren't infrastructure improvements. ..
Two-tiers. The chevy lane and the cadillac lane. Chevy gets to sit in traffic, Cadillac gets smooth sailing. Bloomberg tried his damnedest to get it in New York....
...
rather let the whole highway system crumble to the ground than pay one more cent towards making a new lane that everyone can use no matter how rich or poor they are."

heh.
only problem here is the fact that some of us dont EVEN get to sit stuck in chevy's anymore - WE'RE STUCK IN OUR F__KIN subarus!!! (or fill in the blank with yer fave throw-away POS import)
that need $1000 'timing belt replacements' ?
which my phreakin chevy NEVER REQUIRED!!

What can I say guys - 1+1=2

Nice posting.

(are we undergoing "innovative austerity"? That may fit . . .)

+3

and here's the laff+yuck du'jour:
A Member Of The Middle Class Responds To Jon Hilsenrath

Dear Mr Hilsenrath and your Central Bank Team,
This is Joe from the disappearing Middle Class in America. You asked me the other day to drop you a note if I felt that something was wrong. What I’m having trouble with is “why” you’re asking me if anything is wrong!?
So let me explain...

[drumminj]

Re: Can the Sharing Economy Provide Good Jobs?

heh.
WE'RE STUCK IN OUR F__KIN subarus!!! (or fill in the blank with yer fave throw-away POS import)
that need $1000 'timing belt replacements' ?

My 2011 Forester had a timing chain

[dcarrigg]

Re: Can the Sharing Economy Provide Good Jobs?

My 2011 Forester had a timing chain

And fwiw, my old Ford V8 had coils on plugs, with half the plugs hidden under the manifold. That made for a very nice $1,000 tune up! I went DIY once if figured that out, and think I invented a few new four letter words in the process.

[don]

Re: Can the Sharing Economy Provide Good Jobs?

And fwiw, my old Ford V8 had coils on plugs, with half the plugs hidden under the manifold. That made for a very nice $1,000 tune up! I went DIY once if figured that out, and think I invented a few new four letter words in the process.

I had a truck - probably a Ford - that had an inaccessible spark plug. I never changed that one. Nice engineering - or was it mandatory shop maintenance?

[don]

More Sharing Problemos

"A company that has a bad reputation for misusing personal information should not be allowed to change its policy so it can gather more data"

Uber Data Collection Changes Should Be Barred, Privacy Group Urges

By NATASHA SINGER and MIKE ISAACJUNE 22, 2015

A leading privacy rights group wants the Federal Trade Commission to prohibit Uber from instituting changes to its privacy policy that the group says will allow the ride-hailing app to collect more detailed data about customers’ whereabouts and use their contact lists to send their friends promotional pitches.

The move by the nonprofit research group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, is likely to garner the attention of Washington regulators and privacy watchdogs in the coming weeks, as Uber’s changes are scheduled to take effect July 15.


In a letter sent to the agency on Monday morning, the group, which is known as EPIC and is based in Washington, said that Uber had “a history of abusing the location data of its customers.” EPIC said in its complaint that the coming changes were unfair, deceptive and posed a “direct risk” of consumer harm.

“A company that has a bad reputation for misusing personal information should not be allowed to change its policy so it can gather more data,” Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of EPIC, said in a phone interview.

Uber on Monday said in a statement that there was “no basis for this complaint.” It added: “We care deeply about the privacy of our riders and driver-partners, and have significantly streamlined our privacy statements in order to improve readability and transparency.”

The stakes could be high for Uber, which is based in San Francisco and has made completely clear its global aspirations to upend existing consumer transportation systems. To date, Uber has raised nearly $6 billion in venture capital and is valued at more than $40 billion; the company has plans to raise at least $1 billion more, according to a person with knowledge of the company’s plans, which could value it at $50 billion.

Uber’s reputation is still recovering from public censure last year after allegations surfaced that company employees had mishandled trip data about individual consumers to track their locations, and inappropriately shared an internal tool — colloquially known as “God view” — that showed users taking trips in real time. Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, subsequently wrote a letter to Uber’s chief executive, Travis Kalanick, saying, “The reports suggest a troubling disregard for customers’ privacy, including the need to protect their sensitive geolocation data.”

Aside from privacy watchdog groups, Uber is also under attack from coalitions of drivers who claim that the company is unfairly exploiting workers without employing them, using a so-called “1099” designation as contract workers. Last week, Uber received a flurry of attention after a former driver who sued the company for reimbursement of expenses was deemed an employee, not a contractor, by the California labor commissioner’s office.

Uber’s policy changes may have been intended to ward off government interference with its privacy practices. But the complaint from EPIC is likely to reignite public discussion over the service’s use of customer data.

Among other things, the letter asked the F.T.C. to halt Uber’s collection of any customer location details that are not required to deliver a service; to require Uber to delete location information once a ride has been completed; and to require Uber to publish specific details about the system it uses to profile and evaluate customers.

In a recent post on the Uber website, Katherine Tassi, Uber’s managing counsel of data privacy, wrote that the updated policy was intended to more clearly and concisely explain the kinds of details the company gathered and how it used them.

“In the interest of transparency,” she cited two changes in particular: In addition to asking permission to obtain access to a customer’s location when the Uber app is running in the foreground, the updated policy allows the company to ask for location details when its app is running in the background; the company may also ask for access to a user’s contact list and use that information to send marketing promotions to contacts.

“In either case, users will be in control,” Ms. Tassi wrote. “They will be able to choose whether to share the data with Uber.”

But the EPIC letter contended that Uber had deceptively reassured consumers that they would be in control of their data when the updated policy actually deprived them of that control.

[don]

Sharing Grows

In the modern economy, we share everything: STDs, food stamps, transportation, and housing. It's all facilitated by mobile technology. First there was Rent A Gent. Now, the next part of the sharing economy is upon us: Rent A Tent.

One man decided he wanted to monetize a tent in his Mountain View backyard - for $900 per month. About 25 people have expressed interest, with some asking to stay a month or longer.



More than 50 other tents have appeared on AirBnB in California.



In the 1930s, this sort of activity also took place - except they didn't have exciting names for it like Rent A Tent or "the sharing economy." They called them Hoovervilles, named after President Herbert Hoover.


Actually, these Hooverville structures look much more solid than the Silicon Valley tent, and they didn't cost $900. Being homeless is getting expensive.

[don]

The Freedom of Sharing

With the rise of companies like Uber, entrepreneurs in a variety of fields are extending the concept of connecting customers and workers in what is sometimes called the new sharing economy. There are now online services for private tutors, dog walkers and delivery of packages and groceries, among numerous other options, and it is likely that these ventures will expand.

Many taxi drivers dislike the competition from Uber, but we need to think more systematically about the winners and losers as these new institutions develop. The greater convenience they provide consumers is obvious, but is this generally a good or bad thing for people on the other side of the market, the workers? One recent study, by Jonathan V. Hall of Uber and Alan B. Krueger, a professor of economics at Princeton, supported by Uber, suggested that Uber drivers earned more than typical taxi drivers and chauffeurs. A study of Airbnb by the economist Gene Sperling, in conjunction with Airbnb, found that the service helped supplement middle-class incomes.

Recently the California Labor Commissioner’s Office ruled that one Uber driver was an employee rather than an independent contractor. Uber is appealing the ruling, and it has prevailed in some other states. We don’t yet know how the laws surrounding these services will develop, but the economic efficiencies of institutions like Uber and Airbnb appear to be robust.

Such services are likely to continue to spread. If they do, what else is there to say about their broader implications? In the absence of a lot of systematic data, how might economists think through the effects of these new developments?

On the positive side, the so-called sharing economy allows workers to use their time more flexibly. Drivers can earn money without working full time, and without having to wait around at taxi stands for the next passenger. The workers can use their newly acquired spare time for other purposes, including studying for college, teaching themselves programming or simultaneously offering themselves out for different sharing services: If no one wants a ride, go help someone with repairs around the house.

In short, these developments benefit those workers who are willing and able to turn their spare time to productive uses. These workers tend to be self-starters and people who are good at shifting roles quickly. Think of them as disciplined and ambitious task switchers. That describes a lot of people, but of course, it isn’t everybody.

That’s where some of the problems come in. Uber drivers are much more likely to have a college degree than are taxi drivers or chauffeurs, according to the Hall and Krueger study. It found striking differences between the two groups: 48 percent of Uber drivers have a college degree or higher, whereas that figure is only 18 percent for taxi drivers and chauffeurs.

Only some workers benefit when each hour, or each 15-minute gap, is up for sale. One way to put the general principle is this: The more efficient market technologies become, the more important are human capabilities and backgrounds in determining who prospers and who does not.

To get a better handle on how some workers might lose, consider a hypothetical situation in which such services — and all freelancing and outsourcing services — do not exist. Let’s say a software company receives periodic contracts to execute projects, but it has to rely entirely on current full-time staff. The company then must train its workers to handle a wide variety of possible projects, and so the amount and cost of corporate in-house education go up. But all things being equal, because this training costs something to the company, worker wages will be lower.

In this case, those workers who benefit will be those who need that push from the in-house education to acquire new knowledge. But some self-starting workers might have learned the material on their own anyway. Those workers receive more in-house education than they need, which, in turn, means they are paid lower wages and might well be worse off than they would have been in an economy that encourages self-training and freelance opportunities. One implication is that if the Uber idea spreads, it could discourage corporate training and may require that workers have stronger educational backgrounds. Ideally, formal education should refocus to prepare people for subsequent self-instruction and retraining.

Workers are likely to be evaluated in different ways, too. The Uber driver, who can be rated by customers on the web after a ride, without face-to-face interaction, has a stronger incentive to be nicer, and to offer a clean vehicle and bottles of water, compared with a traditional cabdriver.

At the moment, one problem with many online ratings is that the information isn’t all publicly useful; for instance, a good Uber rating remains within Uber and cannot easily be exported to market a driver for other jobs or opportunities. Perhaps in the future workers might have the option of being certified by Uber or other services in a more general and publicly verifiable manner. That could make such services useful for upward mobility, and it might make their credentials competitive with those of some lower-tier colleges and universities.

Even if we don’t know how important all of the new services will be, it’s already clear that many consumers like them. It’s also evident that at least some workers can benefit from the new arrangements, although the effect on the less educated workers seems to be an important issue.

Still, we shouldn’t be trying to turn back the clock, but rather figuring out how to make the best of this fascinating but sometimes unsettling new world. We are just getting started.

[santafe2]

Re: Sharing Grows

One man decided he wanted to monetize a tent in his Mountain View backyard - for $900 per month. About 25 people have expressed interest, with some asking to stay a month or longer.

Don I often wonder if these journalists go to school before they're allowed to write articles. The backyard is being monetized not the tent. A yurt would go for $1,500 a month. Even tent rentals are location, location, location.

[don]

Re: Sharing Grows

Don I often wonder if these journalists go to school before they're allowed to write articles.

My guess is strictly online courses they took in their basement, which it turns out, is where they write their stories. (I come across this all the time in the infrequent MSM stories on boxing, with incorrect photo captions, wrong records, etc.)

[don]

Re: Sharing Doesn't Always Grow

Broward County is losing Uber. Uber, labeling the county's regulations as onerous, has pulled out, devastating the sharing economy at the Ft. Lauderdale A/P.

The County has agreed to:

The county limits the number of taxis. Uber was granted unlimited vehicles.
The county sets the fare rates for taxis. Uber was allowed to charge whatever they wanted.

Where the rubber rubbed the road the wrong way for Uber (try saying that fast 3 times):

County Required:

Chauffeur licenses for all drivers

Criminal background checks on same

County-approved safety inspection of all vehicles

Sufficient insurance coverage - existing was deemed insufficient


Lyft is still operating in Broward County, and has also not complied.

Is the Sharing-Economy business model seen at risk with these regulations?

[jk]

Re: Sharing Doesn't Always Grow

i would like to propose we come up with an alternative nomenclature to "sharing economy." renting the short term use of your property [air bnb] or your property along with your own service [uber] is NOT "sharing." it's a way to make some extra money, whether in desperation or not. it's one or two steps short of taking your property to a pawn shop and finding work as a laborer.

i think the "sharing" term is a euphemistic cover-up of the fact that people can't find real jobs with decent pay and can hardly afford the cost of their housing.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Sharing Doesn't Always Grow

i would like to propose we come up with an alternative nomenclature to "sharing economy." renting the short term use of your property [air bnb] or your property along with your own service [uber] is NOT "sharing." it's a way to make some extra money, whether in desperation or not. it's one or two steps short of taking your property to a pawn shop and finding work as a laborer.

i think the "sharing" term is a euphemistic cover-up of the fact that people can't find real jobs with decent pay and can hardly afford the cost of their housing.

Maybe call it "capacity pawning"?

[jk]

Re: Sharing Doesn't Always Grow

somehow i want to capture the idea that you become only part owner of what was previously your own property, or partial tenant of what was previously your own apartment. you're selling fractional shares of your property. or you're creating time shares on your residence. there's that word "shares" but with a different meaning. maybe "shares economy" is correct if you understand it as creating fractional shares that are sold to others. you own or control less of what was formerly yours alone.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Sharing Doesn't Always Grow

somehow i want to capture the idea that you become only part owner of what was previously your own property, or partial tenant of what was previously your own apartment. you're selling fractional shares of your property. or you're creating time shares on your residence. there's that word "shares" but with a different meaning. maybe "shares economy" is correct if you understand it as creating fractional shares that are sold to others. you own or control less of what was formerly yours alone.

Words like constrictor(as in Boa Constrictor) and asphyxia come to mind.

Same with carbon monoxide poisoning.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Sharing Doesn't Always Grow

somehow i want to capture the idea that you become only part owner of what was previously your own property, or partial tenant of what was previously your own apartment. you're selling fractional shares of your property. or you're creating time shares on your residence. there's that word "shares" but with a different meaning. maybe "shares economy" is correct if you understand it as creating fractional shares that are sold to others. you own or control less of what was formerly yours alone.

Nothing showing on "capacity pawning" in Google search…….new and unused……first heard here. Haha…….iTulip royalties?

Didn't EJ have a few expressions(besides concepts) regarding the GFC pinched by mass media and financial bobble heads?