[fleitz]

Which is kind of the point, they aren't warm fuzzy come work for us, we're a family, you're a valued employee.

If you work as a driver for Uber you're a contractor, they could give a fuck whether you drive for them lyft, whatever, they don't care. Want to only work from 2am to 3am on Saturday nights? Knock yourself out. Didn't show up on time at 9am? Don't care. Oh, you're in South Africa this week and aren't taking any shifts? That's fine too. If there's work, work if not, fuck you.

To Uber you are the 'self' in the self driving car a machine to be replaced by a slightly cheaper model. That smells an awful lot like contractor and not a lot like employee. The only reason developers are employees is because contract developers are more expensive than employees who don't realize sodas aren't actually that expensive for adults with real skills.

[Sanddancer]

> The only reason developers are employees is because contract developers are more expensive than employees who don't realize sodas aren't actually that expensive for adults with real skills.

Uh, no. Being an employee has a lot of rights that a 1099 person doesn't have, like the right to unionize, the ability to collect unemployment insurance if the company you're working for goes under, being a part of a health insurance pool for lower medical costs, access to the Family and Medical Leave Act rights, etc. There are a lot of things that employees get that aren't just "free sodas".

[fleitz]

I've contracted and had access to all those things, though I don't see the point of unionizing as the sole employee in my own business... Nor would I see any point in rights under the 'Family and Medical Leave Act' when I could take as much time off as I liked and pay myself whatever I wanted to during said leave.