[Anderkent]

>"Yay! Another useless service that creates more low wage service jobs that cater to the wealthy."

... What.

This just doesn't compute. In what mindframe does this ever make sense as a complaint? If you're creating new jobs, even if they're low wage, you're just giving people more choice - they can now work at one more place than before, no one's forced into that, it literally can't do harm. And direct transfer of wealth from the wealthy to the poor is a positive, right?

I'm so confused.

[westiseast]

Part of the issue is that instead of creating traditional jobs that come with healthcare, benefits, strong legal protections, training and company car/whatever, the platform 'task economy' businesses often cut out these benefits and treat everyone like piece workers. So whereas previously eg a customer service rep got low wages but at least their tax was done for them and they had health benefits, now they get a low wage and have to do all that themselves. There's little chance of on-the-job development and training because all the business needs is more tech engineers to polish a front end or analyse data. Their workload (and therefore wages) can go up and down randomly leaving them out of pocket. All the while it puts some traditional businesses out of business because they can't compete on price/service with these companies, so ultimately there are less and lower quality choices. It pushes the burden of doing business down onto the workers rather than up towards richer investors. I'm not saying this 100% applies to Magic, but it's a general and very valid criticism of this type of "the Uber of X" business.

[acjohnson55]

I think that's a bit naive. In the micro, one new task economy startup might be a net gain, all other things being equal, but if it's part of a macro trend where skilled jobs are disappearing and being replaced with commodity task work, we might be sliding down a dangerous slope. Your final question sound kind of like the slightly more extreme argument that yacht factories enrich otherwise unemployed people. To me, that argument always rang hollow because how much wealth is really being transferred when demand for such things is fundamentally limited. I think ideally you want a broad base of jobs that can actually provide people with a middle class livelihood.

[jdmichal]

In addition to all this, let's be clear. The only wealth being "transferred" here is that of the minimum wage to workers. Everything else is making someone else rich, likely already rich investors.

[dlwj]

Justified inequality is good as long as it filters out high quality from low quality. The genius should be compensated more than the low-life.

Systems that classify human potential at birth though are rather unfair and amount to nepotism. The opposite of objective quality. No matter how many jobs a King or Queen creates, the upper class is always above the lower class.

Also, absolute transfer of wealth doesn't mean relative transfer. Slavery nowadays is actually more expensive then just hiring illegals because of housing and food costs. Wealth here is transferred in an absolute sense.

That said, many Uber drivers are very happy with the steeping stone it lends them. Flexible hours, and rather decent pay.

[xasos]

I think it's inherent that every economy needs a number of "lower-tier" employment opportunities for the "upper-tier" to exist and function well. And until robotization becomes viable and accepted, this will continue to be the case.

[gosmart4u]

I see both sides. Seems like there are way more low wage jobs out there though. Plenty to choose from.

[smoyer]

Does it have to be low wage? What if people are paid a base wage but also got a percentage of the fee? Those that truly became experts at finding a service/product that matched the customer's request could become increasingly proficient.

As for the "low wage jobs" comments, I'd pick this over being an Amazon warehouse automaton!

[gosmart4u]

"What if people are paid a base wage but also got a percentage of the fee"

That would be great!

[laxatives]

Given the context, it doesn't need to compute. Its how someone feels about the product. People aren't rational. That doesn't mean they aren't worth going after.