The 'gig' economy reminds me very much of the state of factory workers in the early 1900s. For businesses, it was very clear that forcing workers to work in a very unfriendly way (doing a repetitive task as part of an assembly line) was a multiplier for scale and productivity. However, associated with that was the "price" unfair wages, long hours, stress, strain, and injury.<p>It took 30-60 years of unions and labor rights before the problem was 'solved' - the non-monetary economics of that kind of production sucked (worker's comp + regulations for human rights) and those factories shipped overseas to where those things didn't exist.<p>The modern gig economy is really just scaling up distribution instead of mass production. On paper, it is cheap and scalable. But add in all the socio-economic components and you'll realize that it's not really that cheap, and not an economic engine that can survive long term past the initial stages, reason being that demand exists only because the price is subsidized.<p>Currently, shipping is extremely cheap, subsidized by Amazon, the government, and more recently, the individuals who due to lack of opportunities live with subsistence wages. If shipping was actual market price (where gig workers earned a fair wage), the cost would be much higher, which would shrink demand. (shipping was available as a function since forever, and wasn't ever a popular shopping option until today).<p>If we wanted free shipping as a standard of living, we would need to subsidize shipping on a governmental level, similar to how we subsidize food (especially meat). Americans don't realize it but meat is cheap in the US, much cheaper than the rest of the world. This is purely because of subsidies, which is a perk to allow the american standard of living: <a href="https://www.quora.com/Why-are-meat-and-animal-by-products-so-cheap-in-the-U-S-despite-of-the-fact-that-it-takes-a-lot-of-natural-resources-to-produce-them" rel="nofollow">https://www.quora.com/Why-are-meat-and-animal-by-products-so...</a>.<p>If you want to make the american standard of living free package delivery, subsidize the wages from the US government, and force the tech companies to pay real corporate tax.