If you knew, Susie...

... some more of the silver linings to the gig economy, you might overcome your pessimistic biases, and even let a little sunshine into your worldview;

The current frenzy over “the sharing economy,” “the gig economy,” “the 1099 economy,” “the on-demand economy”—whatever you want to call it—makes it seem as though on-demand delivery services and exploitive freelance labor models are new. ....

But this is not new. Service economy + smartphones = service economy.

Absolutely correcto. Not new, just an improvement on the age old way providers of services find consumers of same. To the mutual satisfaction of both. Providers have a better way of selling, and users have better options. We should celebrate the differences, right?

Technology has had a hand in widening the wealth gap and eliminating much of the middle-class since this industry shift began decades ago. But with the other hand, tech scoops up and delivers old promises of middle-class life and delivers them to the new poor. 

What's the matter with kids today? They haven't studied economic logic, apparently.

It’s cheaper to eat out, to shop, to entertain yourself, and to obtain consumer technology that makes all those things even more convenient, even on just $21,000 a year. A knowledge economy is sometimes referred to as “an economics of abundance, not scarcity.” It’s really an economics of scarcity with the appearance of abundance.

Why don't you go with that, Suze? If someone is making a mere $21,000 per year, then lower prices for the things they consume, makes them better off. No? Whatever you should choose to call it (abundance or scarcity). There's nothing good nor bad, but thinking makes it so. Whether Denmark's a prison to you, is your own fault.

Of course, unique moral outrage is seductive. Someone being paid $5 an hour to deliver toilet paper to people who make $300 an hour and are ideologically opposed to tipping does look very gross, lazy, and inhumane, not to mention indicative of a deeply broken economy and an incredibly warped definition of “innovation.” And tech certainly has a rare ability to further the distance between laborers and their bosses, dehumanizing all of this very human service work.

In our experience, there is nothing laborers like better than distance from their bosses. The farther the better. The gig economy makes possible the elimination altogether of the bosses. A consummation devoutly to be wished obviously, for the multitudes who've embraced the opportunities.