[lesstenseflow]

I read the article you are referring to and it actually came to the opposite conclusion from what you’re saying: net-positive jobs, more spent and more earned.

(If you’re wondering how I am rebutting runarberg when neither he nor I cited a source, that’s a darn good question. But let the record show I offer just as much evidence as he.)

[runarberg]

I can draw out a plausible model right now that results in net-negative jobs. Driving factors include:

* Food vendors that previously had delivery downsizing their own delivery staff and offloading it to uber eats.

* Restaurants not wanting to pay the service fees to uber eats gets fewer customers from the lowered exposures (as customers start ordering mostly through the delivery app), and eventually shut down.

* Restaurants that previously didn’t do delivery getting less money per customer as the delivery services take their share. And is forced to cut down on their opening hours and some of their staff to make up for the loss.

I never read that article you are referring to—if it even exits. The point was that labor dynamics are more complicated then: If a job is created, someone will work that job.

If we transfer over to the taxi market. There are examples of city government using Uber as an excuse to cut bus lines. Some bus drivers hence lost their jobs, and some companies probably lost their workers as the commute became to hard.

[lesstenseflow]

Now you’re just making things up? Why not either link to the source of your claim? I’m willing to believe what you’re saying is true but you’ve got to link to something, not just make up “models” (using the term very loosely here) out of whole cloth.

Also: how is “restaurant has no customers and has to close” Ubers fault? I guess restaurants never closed before Uber eats existed, or is Uber to blame for those business failures as well?

There’s plenty to criticize Uber for but blaming them for the closure of a restaurant that can’t attract customers is simply ridiculous and makes clear some people simply in this thread will blame anything on Uber regardless of whether the accusation even makes sense.

[runarberg]

I am just making things up. My point was never to claim that uber eats has a net negative effects on available jobs, just to hint that it might be the case as an argument against GGGP claim that without uber the workers would either be unemployed or possess an equally sucky job.

> I think I read somewhere where someone actually modeled the dynamics

I know I’m being a little dishonest here. The fact is that I merely think I remember someone else talking about someone else doing such a thing. I never actually had the source, and I think I once saw a secondary source. But I didn’t think I actually needed—nor did I feel like wasting my time—to search for it. I figured it would be sufficient to demonstrate that such dynamics can theoretically exist.