The Gig Economy Is Broken, Do We DOA To Fix It?
A few years ago, I started out in the gig economy after becoming disillusioned with full-time employment. While I collected valuable skills and experience in my formative career years I realised that being an employee did not dictate fair market value.
Besides your qualifications or your gender, race, there’s a lot of fo favouritism that goes in the corporate world and if didn’t want that or a political climate to dictate my earning potential.
Sure a stable job has its benefits but it also has a distinct ceiling that I wasn’t able to break through, hence my move into the gig economy. The gig economy I feel is closer to where we should be heading and instead of trading our time by means of showing up daily for a set amount of hours to get a salary you work when you want, how you want and get paid accordingly.
You’re time and earning potential is now up to you how you use it, it’s a freedom that future generations will enjoy as we set the platform for it. The gig economy has plenty of positives as it allows for optimisation of time and resources and places a distinct value on certain skills or mental capabilities.
But the way we’ve implemented it is wrong.
Image source: — getlinks.co
You’re still doing gigs for the big wigs
The internet offered the promise of access to micro-jobs for many and in that regard, it has produced it with gig economy startups becoming the darling of the tech space. Companies like Uber, AirBnb, Handy, Fiver, TaskRabbit and more become the platform for gig workers to exchange their time and skills to relevant consumers.
However, this middle man didn’t step away once they did the introductions, they kept hold of the entire process, the data, the money and leverage the potential of these connections to pull in a large investment to scale their businesses.
Instead of a place where people would be free to barter with one another its become little digital sweatshops where the gig platform relies on its share of the pie to expand its reach and pull more people into this web and profit off of it.
Image source: — fabrikbrands.com
Where for art DOA
The gig economy does work, it produced thousands of jobs for people in need or for those wanting to be more flexible but with so much money and emphasis on the corporate structure and governance of these platforms a lot fo the value is driven up to shareholders and investors instead of towards those rendering the labour.
I think that eventually, we will see DOA’s or DACs try to replicate the success of their centralised partners and disrupt the market once again.
Imagine an Uber built on the blockchain, where you pay exactly up the centimetre you have been transported. The driver receives the majority of the money while transaction fees and a certain beneficiary some is allocated to a pool for tech and network development. DOA’s help cut out the middle man in several touchpoints and make the product a lot cheaper.
These centralised gig economy platforms spend a considerable amount of money on skilled labour such as developers, digital marketers, admin, accounting, legal fees, physical offices, and offer a range of additional benefits to attract the top talent.
The corporate staff are quite the drain on income and their costs are passed on to the consumer and taken from the margins of the gig worker fee. DOC’s allow for less bloat on the corporate side and more emphasis on the gig worker.
Worker and Investor
Another unique opportunity for a DOA gig platform is that gig workers can have an active stake and say in the platform. They can provide feedback on how the platform can be improved, vote on proposals and with a bottom-up approach instead of the current top-down approach where the gig worker is completely at the mercy of the provider.
We’ve seen how this has played out with Uber drivers and Upwork or 5iver users for years now. These companies are so hell-bent on growth and shareholder value than providing a better product. The gig worker is seen as an expendable commodity and not the lifeblood of the platform
Gig work is about options and opportunities
Gig work was meant to provide an open labour market where people can pick up small tasks and get paid for it and manage this on their own time. Sure centralised platforms have done an amazing job of laying the groundwork, proving the use case and normalising gig work in society but I think it’s now time for this disruptive business model to be disrupted once again.
Originally posted on Steemit
About the Author
Che Kohler is the co-founder of nichemarket, a South African Business Directory and digital marketing agency. He is an avid blogger who specialises in writing about marketing tech and cryptocurrency.
