Interesting Article on the "Gig Economy"

[KingCoin]

Writer goes "undercover" to analyze the benefits and drawbacks of trying to make a living on sites like TaskRabbit, Fiverr, and Mechanical Turk.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3027355/pixel-and-dimed-on-not-getting-by-in-the-gig-economy

TL/DR: You have to hustle hard to make the equivalent of minimum wage, but "gigs" are often thinly veiled try-outs for more permanent work. 

[eil]

To me, the article came across as smarmy and complainypants. More potentially worthless opinions of mine after reading the piece:

• Unskilled labor will always pay poorly compared to skilled labor
• Western culture has an inflated sense of what a "living wage" is and usually includes such "necessities" as a car loan, a mortgage, cable TV subscription, and cell phone plan
• She probably has a point that all of these companies overpromise and underdeliver.

[KingCoin]

• Unskilled labor will always pay poorly compared to skilled labor

That was my main thought. At the end of the day, you're just not going to get paid much to wait in line for an iPhone or fetch someone a sandwich. Add to that the hurdles to actually procuring piecemeal work, and it's not very compelling.

Overall, the article made me much more enthusiastic about using TaskRabbit to dole out tasks rather than getting paid for them.

And yes, it was mildly complainypants (for instance she didn't bother to procure a bike to try out the messenger service) but I guess that was to be expected from someone doing it more to write an article than to make a living. Though we've seen these symptoms from even ostensibly motivated individuals:
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/advice-about-supplemental-income

[rocksinmyhead]

I thought it was slightly complainypants, but not too bad. As far as this:

Western culture has an inflated sense of what a "living wage" is and usually includes such "necessities" as a car loan, a mortgage, cable TV subscription, and cell phone plan

...I definitely agree with you, but I didn't sense that was the issue here. I don't think she was going into it expecting to make $75k a year. But I could be wrong.

More strongly, I got the impression that these companies are sort of shady and are definitely misleading people. But the thought that hit me most of all is that like MMM has said many times, it pays to be handy. Fewer and fewer people actually know how to make things or fix things, and there will always be at least some demand for that.

Anyway, great read, thanks for posting!

[YK-Phil]

• Western culture has an inflated sense of what a "living wage" is and usually includes such "necessities" as a car loan, a mortgage, cable TV subscription, and cell phone plan

This Youtube video is going around in Quebec just in time for the upcoming April 7 election, which is I assume some sort of political propaganda to scare some people into voting one way or the other. I have no intention of raising any political discussion whatsoever here, but just look at the expenses they use to justify why someone making $52K cannot make ends meet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ASR9_7_FA4&feature=youtu.be

[innerscorecard]

As Charlie Munger said, the first $100,000 is a bitch.

Story of my life so far.

[rtrnow]

This Youtube video is going around in Quebec just in time for the upcoming April 7 election, which is I assume some sort of political propaganda to scare some people into voting one way or the other. I have no intention of raising any political discussion whatsoever here, but just look at the expenses they use to justify why someone making $52K cannot make ends meet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ASR9_7_FA4&feature=youtu.be

Yeah that is pretty silly though I guess a lot/most folks feel all of that is necessary. $1500/yr on clothes. I can't even imagine how to spend that much on clothing, much less the car payments and other items that could easily be cut out.

[warfreak2]

Yeah that is pretty silly though I guess a lot/most folks feel all of that is necessary. $1500/yr on clothes. I can't even imagine how to spend that much on clothing, much less the car payments and other items that could easily be cut out.

Maybe they have five children who each grow out of all their clothes every six months? Beats me.

[KingCoin]

$1500/yr on clothes. I can't even imagine how to spend that much on clothing, much less the car payments and other items that could easily be cut out.

I don't think it takes much imagination. Walk into somewhere like JCrew. The average shirt or pair of pants is ~$80. $1500 gets you about 1.5 articles of clothing a month. Throw in a couple $200 dresses or a $300 suit and it's not hard to chip through $1500 in a hurry. Heck, I imagine some people could blow that in one "successful" outing. 

[rocksinmyhead]

$1500/yr on clothes. I can't even imagine how to spend that much on clothing, much less the car payments and other items that could easily be cut out.

I don't think it takes much imagination. Walk into somewhere like JCrew. The average shirt or pair of pants is ~$80. $1500 gets you about 1.5 articles of clothing a month. Throw in a couple $200 dresses or a $300 suit and it's not hard to chip through $1500 in a hurry. Heck, I imagine some people could blow that in one "successful" outing.

yeah, I could spend that pretty easily. not in one outing, but definitely over a year. and I don't even think of myself as some crazy materialistic clothes horse, but I'll admit I am terrible about buying used clothes (it's not even that I'm grossed out by them, I'm just too lazy and end up buying most of my clothes online. I LOVE liketwice.com). thankfully I've managed to cut back (and yes, I would definitely spend less if I were making $52k!)

[Eric]

That was a good read KC.  A long read, but good.  I've never really experimented with any of those side income sites before, but I feel like that was a pretty good primer as to what would be involved.  It also makes me pretty thankful that I have a full time job.

[KBecks]

This was very interesting.  I had thought about trying DogVacay, but it's not high on the priority list.  It might be fun though!

[ShortInSeattle]

In some cases, skilled labor can also pay poorly due to a glut of candidates. Writing for example. It does take skill but there are so many writers out there the jobs tend to pay peanuts.

[arebelspy]

As Charlie Munger said, the first $100,000 is a bitch.

Story of my life so far.

Charlie was born in 1924.   If he was referring to 100k around the time he was 30 (1954), that'd be the equivalent of 855k today.

http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi

In other words, you could translate that to "The first 3/4 million is a bitch."  Using it to mean a literal 100k doesn't make much sense - 100k is a lot easier to make nowadays than it was then.  Hell, the median household salary nowadays is 50k (in 2012), compared to 6.1k (nominal) in 1967. (http://www.davemanuel.com/median-household-income.php)  In 1954 it was likely around 2.5k.  In other words, you can make 100k in two years of working now, compared with 40 years of working then.  And that's actually being generous, because you can make 855k in only 17 years of working at the median amount.

(Now yes, you'll have expenses, but you did back then too, and in fact given how the cost of goods is even cheaper, you can proportionally save more than you could back then.)

So his quote shouldn't be taken at literal value.

He's basically saying, translated to today's dollars, that the first million is a bitch.

[arebelspy]

Back on topic, it makes sense that random errands and unskilled labor won't pay much.  They should be viewed as low paying side gigs as one looks for (or has, but does in their free time) a main job.

[Mr Mark]

If the marginal opportunity cost of your time is this low, I feel real sadness.

I'm 50.

Let's be optimistic and say, half way. :-)

50 years x 365.25 days x 24 hours = 438300 hours until I die.

At minimum wage thats just (8 hr days til im 100) less than a million dollars. Even before expenses.

The rest of my life is worth a f4ck lot more than that, ill tell you. Live every minute folks. There's no second ticket on this ride.

Edit / addition: ironic that one can see this calculation as an independent fair estimate for the reasonable cost of buying your freedom, in that, with a little under a million, you can cease to be a wage slave. FIRE

[Ian]

I've looked into these before, and they've always struck me as kind of tedious for limited pay. Nice to have someone put a little effort into confirming this.

[arebelspy]

If the marginal opportunity cost of your time is this low, I feel real sadness.

I'm 50.

Let's be optimistic and say, half way. :-)

50 years x 365.25 days x 24 hours = 438300 hours until I die.

At minimum wage thats just (8 hr days til im 100) less than a million dollars. Even before expenses.

The rest of my life is worth a f4ck lot more than that, ill tell you. Live every minute folks. There's no second ticket on this ride.

Love that calculation.  Thanks for the perspective!

[Mr Mark]

A very good friend of mine was retiring the standard way at 52. Hed been lucky, started early with a big oil company, worked and saved all his bonuses.

They tried to get him to stay on. For lots of money.

I asked him why he didn't want to do another year or two. (I was much younger and not as wise), and ill always cherish his reply:

Mark, remember the one thing you can't buy is time....

true.

[CarDude]

A very good friend of mine was retiring the standard way at 52. Hed been lucky, started early with a big oil company, worked and saved all his bonuses.

They tried to get him to stay on. For lots of money.

I asked him why he didn't want to do another year or two. (I was much younger and not as wise), and ill always cherish his reply:

Mark, remember the one thing you can't buy is time....

true.

So true.

[TomTX]

$1500/yr on clothes. I can't even imagine how to spend that much on clothing, much less the car payments and other items that could easily be cut out.

I don't think it takes much imagination. Walk into somewhere like JCrew. The average shirt or pair of pants is ~$80. $1500 gets you about 1.5 articles of clothing a month. Throw in a couple $200 dresses or a $300 suit and it's not hard to chip through $1500 in a hurry. Heck, I imagine some people could blow that in one "successful" outing.

I can see how that would happen. I have real trouble buying anything at the 66% off rack. I really want 75% off or better - and I usually get it. A sizeable fraction of my (new) clothes were 80% off or better.

[lexie2000]

$1500/yr on clothes. I can't even imagine how to spend that much on clothing, much less the car payments and other items that could easily be cut out.

I don't think it takes much imagination. Walk into somewhere like JCrew. The average shirt or pair of pants is ~$80. $1500 gets you about 1.5 articles of clothing a month. Throw in a couple $200 dresses or a $300 suit and it's not hard to chip through $1500 in a hurry. Heck, I imagine some people could blow that in one "successful" outing.

I can see how that would happen. I have real trouble buying anything at the 66% off rack. I really want 75% off or better - and I usually get it. A sizeable fraction of my (new) clothes were 80% off or better.

I saw a denim shirt in a department store that I wanted to buy for DH.  It was normally $40, but on sale for $22.  That was still too expensive as far as I was concerned.  I decided to wait a month or so.  The other day I was near the store so I decided to go in and check the clearance rack.  Found the shirt in his size for $8 - 80% off.  SCORE!!