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by alextingle 510 days ago
I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with the gig economy model - it's a way of working that suits some workers and clients. But the balance of power needs to be shifted towards the workers (and clients) and away from the platforms.

I think this article is spot on. Platforms obfuscate their algorithms, and use that secrecy to play workers off against each other, and against their clients. Regulation would really help. There ought to be a right to...

1. An official explanation for each decision the algorithm makes. That could then be used as the basis for mandatory arbitration, if a party believes it's unfair.

2. Effective, and timely support from a human being, if that's required.

Together those would force the platforms to make their systems fairer (else be swamped by dealing with arbitration decisions), and easy to navigate (else be swamped by costly support calls).
2 comments
crmd 510 days ago
I hope I'm not nitpicking semantics, but I believe part of the solution is in the discourse is to specify platform owners as the greedy actors here. E.g.:

>The balance of power needs to be shifted towards the workers (and clients) and away from the platform owners. >Platform owners obfuscate their algorithms, and use that secrecy to play workers off against each other

The platforms themselves are just code and capital, while actual human beings are leveraging them to implement this awful neo-taylorism on their workers. It would be like my grandfather being mad at "the factory" for horrible working conditions, rather than the shitty owner of the factory.

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Terr_ 508 days ago
> Platforms obfuscate their algorithms, and use that secrecy to play workers off against each other, and against their clients.

Yeah, the secrecy is--if not evil on its own--a key component that allows evil (and maybe unlawful) things to occur.

A similar critique can be applied to content-moderation, where "security through obscurity" makes no sense because the whole point is to foster clear rules people can internalize and an authority they can trust.

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