Comment by smj-edison

I'm really struggling to understand your argument, are you trying to argue in short-term or long-term trends? I'm trying to argue that in aggregate, life is getting better for people, while also awknowledging that there's not an equal distribution. For example, food has decreased in price 4x since 1900 in real terms[1]. I don't see how that's not more affordable.

> You skated right past the need for a smartphone.

Hmm? Like when I said "Another cost is it's pretty much impossible to do anything without a smartphone and internet"?

> a good Uber Eats driver can make about $13 to $16 an hour

Source? That doesn't line up with what I found.

> A performance, mind, that is subject to dozens of factors entirely outside the control of the driver.

This is just FUD if you haven't cited your sources on average/median/distribution of pay in whatever area.

You have a very good point on liability issues though.

> The solution is I think quite simple here

Thus increasing prices of rides, causing users to stop using the service, further shrinking pay? Uber just started being profitable after dumping billions of dollars in subsidies, on top of bad pay. If you make them full-time employees, you may just shut off the one source of income they have.

Uber won because they offered a superior service to taxis. I'm not going to open the can of worms of their predatory behavior, but there was still a significant part that was a better service.

Again, I am planning on helping these people, I think they should be helped, but you really need to think through what could happen if you force a company to become insolvent.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/long-term-prices-food?foc...