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The Gig Economy is Terrible: Here’s Why

Aperture | August 14, 2025



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Comments

This post currently has 50 comments.

  5. @MinionInc

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    "gig" economy will only get better with more structure, I think. They paved a new way of working and hiring. It's only a matter of time before a large majority of the community become "independent contractors".

  9. @Zowie39

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    Some law was passed and will be in effect March. So whatever that was seems like it was working too good and got taken away? News was just mentioning that. I do not know the laws name all I know it has something to do with passing ABC test? Not sure. Wish they wouldnt fix what wasnt broke. ⚘🕊

  11. @capitalismisdivisionofevil8322

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    Working is a complete waste of time! Money does not have enough value anymore! No livable wages for over 45 years! Cost of living is suicidal and inflation completely out of control! Going off the grid and homesteading is the ONLY good option left! Working in capitalism is slavery!

  12. @Robeveryfightscene

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    I work for Uber and you cancel as many orders as u want to. May acceptance rate is like 8 percent however people that are not smart enough actually lose money working for Uber by taking every single order …. I have seen order for $1.50

  13. @eddieschwab864

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    That might be the case in Extremes in the case of uber with them lowering the payout from the fairs. But not all gig work is the same. I work for a locally owned restaurant delivery service the lady that operates the platform is a close personal friend of mine and the ostensible way we look at the business is that our bosses are the end-user customers that we deliver to and our customers are the restaurants that we deliver for. We deliver for almost a hundred restaurants in the local area. As for benefits my wife has the day job with good insurance and certainly much better Insurance than the job I previously had full-time who's Insurance went to crap as a company. More importantly I get paid based on my efforts not based on an algorithm not based on anything like that I get an order I drop it I get paid for that although I do tend to keep a pretty firm schedule most of the time I can set my own hours as needed with other things that might be going on. But I certainly am fine. Not the least bit worried about my short or long-term economic status. Daily economy is great but it's not for everybody

  14. @youreyesarebleeding1368

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    Uber just facilitates the transaction between the drivers and the passengers, and requires some basic guarantees from the driver such as making them deliver on their side of the deal. Gig work is just like eBay, but for services instead of goods.

    All of the drivers who use Uber agreed to be in that contract, they weren't forced to drive for Uber against their will. If they are protesting Uber over this, it means they have no other options — at which point, would they rather just have nothing at all since they don't have any useful skills or the flexibility to get another job?

    They're pinning the blame on Uber, but really should be blaming themselves. If you're in a bad spot and you have to sell some of your stuff on eBay to pay bills, you wouldn't then blame eBay because you regret selling your stuff for a low price.

  15. @chris7285

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    The gig economy can work if you work gigs that don’t involve using a car.

    I’m still pretty young so I don’t mind not having health insurance right now.

    You just gotta get creative with how you live. Not always glamorous but there are ways to save and beat the system even when the economy is in the gutter.

    I live with 5 roommates and we all get along just fine. We split the bills 5 ways and everyone pitches in for food. We got a tightly knit group and anytime someone is struggling we help them back up.

    This frees up our budget tremendously. Enough so that I’m able to invest at least $300 a month into the stock market. It’s definitely a bear market right now but that’s precisely why it’s the best time to invest. Stock prices are low and eventually the economy will recover so it’s best to buy stocks now.

    My gigs involve anything from washing dishes, washing laundry, cleaning circle k’s, merchandising, warehouse work, event vendor work, etc. In todays tech driven world, you can find ways to make money in all kinds of ways.

    Employers are always surprised when a 26 year old like me tells them I’m only looking for part time hours. They think I’m living on my own or something but I’m not. I don’t mind biting the bullet for a few years. I don’t see the point in renting out my own place only to spend over half my income on keeping a roof over my head. On top of this I don’t even drive a car. I get around on an electric scooter.

  16. @julijaspat4477

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    why is everyone using the working environment of Uber drivers to downgrade gig economy? The real and "glamorous" gig economy is lived by digital designers and developers.

  17. @brianj4201

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    I've been doing Uber Eats and it's terrible. Sometimes you get really good money, but a lot of the times it's not even worth it.

    I hope I'll live to see the downfall of these gig apps.

  20. @electropentatonic

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    Drivers gained massive leverage during covid. Half the country was self-isolating and a large portion were working from home. These people also had larger disposable incomes during these times. No gas, free government checks and even rent was cancelled. Fast forward to today, the economy is in a massive contraction. The surplus of workers from the pandemic are now saturating the gig market. There's less customers and more drivers. This coming period will hurt but I believe things will improve when inflation, fuel and goods prices stop suppressing family's spending. Hang in there

  21. @afgor1088

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    it's catching on because it's profitable… that's literally the only reason
    wtf is this propaganda BS? no one doing gig work is doing it because they want to, it's done because they're forced into it

  25. @Deadlyish

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    Important issue, but this video is undermined a bit by the pitch for masterworks, a pretty unethical and unproductive scheme in its own right

  29. @TheAed38

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    I drive for Uber Eats as a side hustle. With inflation as bad as it is, if I don't side hustle I end up saving $0 dollars at the end of the month, or incur a small loss. Driving for Uber Eats has been a huge windfall for me so far, because now I can deliver for 10-20 hours a week and actually get somewhere with my finances. I'm not sure the gig economy is a great way to make a living, but it's great as a side hustle. I can set my own hours and don't have to be lorded over by an idiot boss.

  38. @bjstrife

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    Switched from a 9-5 job to having a store on Etsy instead. Now I work 24/7. The freedom to either work non stop or lose your income is amazing let me tell you that.

  41. @chicken29843

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    Yeah companies like uber and Airbnb are fake companies that don't actually offer anything but the facilitation of a transaction. They literally only exists to extract value from the economy. Very much like corporate food chains extracting money from the franchises without actually having to take on any of the overhead

  42. @chicken29843

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    There are some tax benefits to being listed as an independent contractor, you kind of get more freedom on claiming things as business expenses. Tho not getting any kind of insurance kind of makes it not worth

  46. @tonysaenz

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    Correction: Uber drivers can decline as many request as they want. Even if you accept 0% of the rides you are offered nothing happens. Here in Austin I make about $24 per hour gross, $18 per hour net / profit. It’s great for someone who doesn’t have / want a real career. But I got too many ambitions to get stuck doing this for long… watch out world, here I come!!!

  48. @mate53

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    I tried making money on UpWork for almost a year. It was pretty dreadful, and the best gigs I got were editing blog posts for random companies, making it more readable, fixing typos or making suggestions, etc.

    The only long term route I could see was when I did marketing campaigns for people, but I would try and get them off of UpWork to talk in private because that was the only way I could see working out a real, long term opportunity and building a stronger relationship.

    Obviously UpWork didn't like this, and I got banned lol.

  49. @mate53

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    My dad is almost 60, he drives for door-dash and uber eats and uber, he makes decent money driving a full sized truck in Tampa FL. He also works in construction and makes most of the money from that.

    He's been pushing me to get involved in this for a while despite my car not running too great, I could still do the food delivery, but I have a full time job. But at one point I told him about this "gig economy" and how it's great when you don't need it to get by. Once you need to have a side gig just to get by, it's not fun anymore, and there's clearly a larger problem with the system as a whole.

    When things like Uber started coming out, it was exciting, but everyone seemed to miss the bigger picture, like this video explains.

  50. @LiborTinka

    August 14, 2025 at 7:39 pm

    One mistake: It was going downhill since 70s – the reason it haven't been seen in 80s and 90s was the govt debt gap wasn't that deep and there was a space to grow and borrow. The money dilution was relatively slow, cracks started to appear in 2000s with a full blown crisis in 2008 – people haven't learned their lesson so it spirals down again. The national debt is not being payed up, quite contrary – more money is printed. This is what companies like Uber thrive on – freshly printed money from big investors. Look up the Cantillion Effect to understand it's not capitalism what is broken – it's the very monetary system that is rigid and the game is rigged. People like stability, that's why so many people choose jobs over enterpreneurship. The war on small business, the inflation of public policy, eurodollar system, petrodollar system, these are the sources of nearly all the economic issues. They try to fix it with same methods that just doesn't work. Inflation is still measured in the manipulated CPI metric while inflation is extremely different based on the asset with the truly desirable assets (housing, schooling, health care…) are getting expensive way faster than e.g. technology. And are people still investing in big tech, not so much in the infrastructure, health care etc. When more people are forced to invest just to keep their savings, more people want the number to go up and invest in tech. It's a modern-times tullip mania. Uber is just a logical conclusion of the fiat system – it's the most rational way of building companies in a highly inflationary system – you just need to grow at a faster pace than the money is devalued, which is exactly what blitzscaling is about. Blame central banks and the govt and people who still accept this behaviour, not caring about the long term consequences.

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