Item — HN Reader

I'm not 100% sure on this but I think when you start a franchise, the model is that you pay an huge up front price for being able to use the brand. I think that's kind of what the New York taxi license model is; Pay $1,000,000, now you too can drive a cab.

I think the dream of the gig economy is that you can use your own tool/skill to work when you want. Think of it more like cutting the grass or shoveling snow in your neighborhood for $15-$30 bucks depending on the area (If you had a neighborhood like that).

1 comments

Ugh. Licensing fees. Of course. I should have consulted wiki first. (Thank you for illuminating me.)

I'm stuck on the drivers providing their own hardware to secure the privilege of working.

Other pejoratives don't quite capture this arrangement. Share cropping, dealer channel (value added reseller), multi-level marketing.

Maybe "gig economy" is the pejorative.

Yeah maybe — it should really just be the entrepreneurial economy. I think one of the big challenges is that most people jumping into this type of work want the freedom of an entrepreneur and the "safety" of an employee. There seem to be services that offer full-time employee like benefits[1], but I'm not sure how effective they are.

As an entrepreneur, it is a "bring your own tools" type of system. When I did contract development, I had to bring my own laptop, my own software, and use that to produce and bill the client. I think the challenge in this new system is that the pricing dynamics aren't fluid. You know what, as I'm typing this I wonder if building a system that lets the entrepreneurs somehow control the prices will maybe help set an equilibrium.

[1] - https://www.trupo.com