The desperate hustle as a way of life - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/the-news-hole/desperate-hustle-way-life/ <comment><USER2> The argument has an emotional resonance, but does it really make sense? It's not like working for big employers (and entrusting Wall Street with one's retirement) worked out really well in the past decade either.

Every company is out there "hustling", as they compete with one another. So is it so much better to delegate the hustling aspect of life to one's CEO? Or are we all just turning over power and rewards to those people, in exchange for a quieter life?

It does get at the question - what are companies even for? According to free market theories, we should _all_ be selling our labor freelance. The standard answer for a long while was that transaction costs would be too high. So possibly AirBnB and Uber are solving that, and more of us can jettison the dead weight of having bosses who specialize in hustling.

The only problem is that they are completely artificial "markets", and they're taking a tremendous percentage. You're not hustling on the free market, you're hustling on the totally-controlled-by-AirBnB market. And the company has no long-term responsibility to any individual operator, and there's probably never going to be anything like an AirBnB hosts' union. Right now, the sharing economy companies will try hard to make life good for the sharers, but they may not always be so aligned.

<comment><USER3> _According to free market theories, we should all be selling our labor freelance._

This is incorrect. If the disutility to an employer of absorbing short term risk is lower than the disutility to the employee, it makes perfect sense. And similarly, if an employer has a comparative advantage over the employee for hustling, specialization makes sense.

There are also large tax incentives (most notably relating to medical spending) for full time employment.

"Free market theories" don't generally oppose risk mitigation strategies, specialization or exploiting economies of scale.

<comment><USER4> In more general terms employment is an agreement between employer and employee. If you're willing to give your employer a better price for your labor in return for some measure of security you'll probably find an employer with whom you can come to some arrangement, assuming there's any demand at all for your skill.

Where I work we have a ridiculously complicated project with crazy business rules and hundreds of thousands of C++ lines written over twenty years. It takes an entire year for someone to become productive. My employer pays people on that project very well and tries to keep them happy so they won't leave and take that year of training out the door.

<comment><USER5> Is that year of training worth anything once you walk out the door ?

<comment><USER4> No, it isn't. But it represents sunk costs to my employer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a really interesting perspective thanks for sharing. I don't think anyone intended to create this shadow economy. The founders of AirBnB, TaskRabbit, Lyft, and the like did not create those services with the intention that people hustle full-time. More that it was a stopover to get some cash in an economy where you might need it and a place where cost of living is high. But I very much agree that this piece demonstrates perverse incentives. As someone else posted on here, it's not right if people hustle to the extent of crashing with their friend's parent's cousins every day just so they can list their places on AirBnB.

The other point though, is that I don't think we'll have decades of hustle anyways, because the point of many of these services is to catalyze a culture of sharing that we've lost. Once we gain it back, then Lyft, Uber, and the like (as one example) can shift from drivers that drive around looking for rides (which is hardly sharing so much as a homegrown taxi), into truly picking up people when convenient for their usual routes. Of course, this depends on these organizations not being swayed by perverse incentives themselves.

We'll see!

<comment><USER7> One thought that occurred to me while reading this was the similarity to how tuition increases by however much the government provides in subsidies.

Perhaps the reason we'll all need to "hustle as a way of life" is because by making it easy enough for everyone to do, everyone's earning potential is increased, and our entire earning potential gets soaked up by higher rents and other limited-quantity commodities we all compete for.

<comment><USER8> I believe that is what inflation means.

<comment><USER9> Money is a leaky abstraction. What epicureanideal was really saying is that everyone's potential to create things or services of value to other people increase. Assuming people act on this potential and the monetary base stays constant we will get deflation. Of course, Uber and AirBnB are partly replacing taxi rides and hotel rooms - the total amount of rides and rooms for hire will stay more or less constant. So deflation for that reason is unlikely. It's not about the value of money overall.

But what are taxi drivers or hotel staff going to do? They can lower their prices (and thereby limit Uber/ArBnB) or they can do something else. Probably something less enjoyable and/or lower paying, or they would already be doing it. So money moves from professionals to hobbyists and the firms that organize the hobbyist movements. But who are the hobbyists really? Not millionaires, I would bet. The Uber drivers may be hotel staff and the AirBnB hoteliers may be taxi drivers. People who need money, in other words. So lower-class services get less expensive, low-class people get less purchasing potential and the potential go to the middle-upper class people at Uber/AirBnB directly, and to other trades not suited for hobbyisation indirectly.

It doesn't look very good.

<comment><USER10> > They can lower their prices (and thereby limit Uber/ArBnB) or they can do > something else. Probably something less enjoyable and/or lower paying, or > they would already be doing it.

I'm not really sure that the money-flow works the way you think it does. When I stayed in London last week at AirBnB instead of the hotel which was literally next door, the savings wasn't _just_ hotel labor (which I mostly didn't need). It also meant money that could have gone to the hotel owners (capitalists with multi-million pound investments) instead went to a family which was spending time abroad on a cycle-tour through Germany.

<comment><USER11> > It also meant money that could have gone to the hotel owners (capitalists > with multi-million pound investments) instead went to a family which was > spending time abroad on a cycle-tour through Germany.

The money you would have paid to a hotel would have been split between the employees and the owners. For your Airbnb stay, a 6-12% guest service fee [0] and a 3% host service fee [1] was paid to Airbnb, who are analogous to the owners in the hotel situation.

You are perfectly right that you made savings by not paying for services you didn't want, but the "sharing" model hasn't eliminated the role of the capitalist class, which is implied by your post.

To take a much broader view, although our global production capacity has increased markedly, so has our consumption, which ultimately causes prices of these goods to remain relatively high to people on locally average incomes. One might hypothecate that we could maintain our higher production with a significantly smaller global population (and correspondingly lower consumption), which would make real inroads into lowering prices for common goods, but I really have no idea as to whether or not that is true.

[0] [https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/question/104](https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/question/104) [1] [https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/question/63](https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/question/63)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> AirBnB, Lyft, etc certainly take advantage of the underemployment boom -- but did they _cause_ it? It seems unfair to blame two relatively small companies for the result of multiple regulatory failures across multiple industries, especially considering that neither existed in its current form when the crash happened.

<comment><USER13> I don't think the article is blaming these companies for the current employment situation. It highlights that these business models are deemed clever and entrepreneurial while in fact supporting a wage model whereby everybody is responsible for the hustle, working on commission... employment as a service if you will. This in of itself isn't bad, but the article makes the point that this approach leads to an employment where nobody can just work for a fair wage, everybody is hustling. I thought it was a very thoughtful and interesting piece that revealed one of the long term consequence of something that everybody seems to be celebrating, this 'liberation' of service (and employment).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hustling has been the ONLY way of life until very recently, perhaps the past few hundred years. This is really only since yesterday as far as the history of humanity is concerned. Things could be better in the U.S. for the middle class but we are still wealthy as far as most of the planet's population is concerned. I'm sorry I have no sympathy for the author's chief complaint. You can still find a nice quiet well paying job at a place like Exxon or Goodyear where you can in fact work until retirement. You could also choose to live in a place that isn't so expensive that the only way to survive is to hustle. Then you could save a little money, purchase some income producing assets, and become a capitalist yourself.

Given all that, some of us do enjoy the hustle. For us, the only true safety is that which we provide for ourselves through the hustle.

<comment><USER15> The hustle isn't anything new; anyone who's lived in what's termed the inner- city knows about people selling bootleg CDs and DVDs on the street and people offering rides for money--they're called 'gypsy cabs' in Boston. Most of the people who participate in this underground economy are desperate to keep a roof over their heads and to know they'll have a next meal.

The author is pointing out that companies like AirBnB ($776.40 million in funding: [http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airbnb](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airbnb)) and Lyft ($332.50 million in funding: [http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/lyft](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/lyft)) are monetizing this desperation and asking: are we as a society okay with this?

When you take this point of view, you can kind of see why they (the companies and investors) use the warm and fuzzy term 'the sharing economy', which puts a nice spin on it. Sharing is good, right?

It's a slippery slope issue too: what else will get monetized in the name of the sharing economy? People often share prescription drugs with each other now; you could totally see an app that lets you see everyone around you who's willing to share their Prozac or whatever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Now, I drive for lyft (full-time) while I'm waiting for the IRS to approve my nonprofit's 501(c)3 status. It pays better than being a postdoc (about 20% better, also I had the 'foresight' to buy a hybrid car back in 2010). That says something about how the academic science industry has been captured to the point where labor costs are depressed to where it's better for me to have a job that doesn't require my PhD. The article writer should keep in mind that the leaders of academia are very much neoliberals often claiming to try to emulate the "profit-free" incentive structure "of europe" \- and they're doing way, way worse than corporate america.

Back to Lyft: Some of my 'coworkers' can't even do math (I met up with one to try to help him figure out the tax situation, deep down it was painful for me to see the blank stares he gave me when I tried to show him how to convert miles per gallon to dollars per mile). But he's making by, and probably better than he would be without Lyft.

The author writes, "think for just a minute about what this means for the prospect of honest work". I don't know what his definition of honest work is, but to me it's this: Provide a service or good to someone that wants it. Go back and watch "school ties", where the dad tells his son about the scrappers picking valuables out of the dump, that at least that's "honest work". Lyft is "honest work". When I'm out there, I'm giving someone something they want, at a fair price, and having a social byproduct of keeping drunk people off the streets and giving vulnerable people a way to get home without worrying about getting stiffed for money, groped by an unscrupulous driver, or harrassed for being gay.

The kicker? I can't say that anything I did in my last postdoc has any real social or individual value that compares. Yeah, there was a 401k plan and healthcare coverage, and all the trappings of a 'real job' except poor compensation. But it wasn't _honest work_.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't see a future for Lyft and things like that. I don't see how semi- private people are supposed to manage their cars and apartments more efficiently than professionals. So if anything, those services will be transitional (until nobody owns their own car anymore).

That said, I really don't agree with the sense of entitlement from that post. The real world actually is tough. Just because we managed at times to build a small layer of security on top of it, doesn't mean everybody is entitled to it.

I don't think there is a conspiracy to deprive people of their job security, it is just a developing reality. And quite frankly, I think everybody should take responsibility for their own life. People might actually be better off if they do that.

<comment><USER18> This doesn't make sense. What you're saying is that the world is a shitty place, for a while it was less shitty and now it's going to shit again.

We've never been more technologically sophisticated. It's never been cheaper to stay alive. It's never been easier to produce cheap, valuable goods to ensure that people can have a good life.

It's not about job security, it's about making sure that everyone can afford a bare minimum of dignity and living standard. If you read between the lines, the author of this story calls for sensible regulation to ensure that this continues to be the case, and that regular people aren't exploited for economic gain. While this might be a controversial topic in some circles, I don't think your average middle-class family would object.

It is _obvious_ that the continued technological developments, including automation, will cause an amount of pain and strife. This is why we should meet these problems head-on. Increased automation should mean more wealth and a better life for everyone. The status quo, at least in the US, has meant a poorer median and vastly increased wealth differences between the top and the median. The latter of these points is not in itself a problem, but the first is. That's where the problem lies.

<comment><USER17> If the means are there to make life nice for everyone, I am all for it. However, I am not convinced it is actually the case. If we had some good years, it might also just have been luck: for example using up oil, which is like a lottery win for society (free energy, but limited), or exploiting people in other countries (cheap washing machines and clothes).

Do you think there is actually no risk in our modern world? Otherwise, why should some people (company owners) be forced to shoulder the risk for other people?

If there ever was a period where life was easy for everyone, how long did it actually last? WW2 ended 1945. I think it must have been between then and now. In between there was the Vietnam war, cold war, various economic crises, and so on. Maybe that classic "be a factory worker with lots of benefits and pay for your family and home" only ever lasted a couple of years? I guess it is mostly known from movies from the 50ies?

I am not actually as hardcore as it sounds. I think people should look out for each other, and society should strive to make everybody have a good life. I'm just not convinced that employee entitlement is the correct way to go about it.

Note that job security is also something society pays a price for (it's factored into the prices of products - if a company has to stick to brewing horses and musn't switch to car manufacturing, because they employ a lot of horse breeders, society pays by having to do with less efficiency). As a freelancer, I don't understand why I should pay for somebody else's job security?

<comment><USER19> As a freelancer, you're not paying for someone else's job security, you are actually _benefitting_ from it. Job security (and employment benefits in general) are huge mitigating factors against the stress of the modern worker's life, it's what allows them to function at a good level which sustains the company that's hiring you as a freelancer to begin with.

Staying at the top of Maslow's pyramid of needs is _much_ more fundamental for a productive, healthy society to exist than the purported efficiency you think you would achieve by taking people's job security away.

That we're talking of a 'desperate hustle' to survive is indeed very bad news of our society in this context. If all people can think of is of ways of scraping by to survive, and do that 24/7, they don't have time to create, innovate, research and do actual good, meaningful things. And yet, that's where we're inevitably headed.

In the modern era, workers have been facing a steadily increasing amount of stress and pressure due to the ever-accelerating pace of change in our society. With every passing decade, more and more we've found that we have to be on the edge, or else who knows if our job will be automated away or outsourced to another country to never come back.

This is _why_ the 'desperate hustle' has come about. Today, workers know they can't cut it, they can't keep up, they just take it all in bravely -the pay cuts, the longer work hours, the loss of security and benefits, all hardships which had supposedly been left behind. We have come full circle, and it's not a good place to be.

<comment><USER17> So you think life would be better if there was less change? For example if we hadn't changed from horses to cars? I think people change their ways of living because the new ways are more efficient or convenient. Why would they change to a worse state.

I think you are wrong when you claim that I don't pay for other people's job security. That job security is costing companies money (for example because they can't fire people they don't need anymore), and that cost is factored into their products.

I didn't mean freelancers specifically pay for that, society in general does. But employees get the job security in return - freelancers don't get anything in return. You make the argument about stability of companies - OK, maybe that is a factor, but I would like to see some research that shows it is significant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Another similarly-bleak take on the 'sharing' economy:

[http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust- economy/](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust-economy/)

(Forwarded as an interesting set of thoughts, not endorsement.)

</comment><comment><USER21> It's fine to want to earn more money as long as you don't do this by taking away other people's freedoms. No one has the right to use force on others for their own ends. No one has the right to take away other people's right to contract in order to maintain an above-market price. So for example: the minimum wage takes away the rights of employers and would-be employees to contract at low wages in order to allow some workers to charge above-market wages. Taxi medallions take away the rights of passengers and drivers to contract for cheap fares in order to allow taxi companies to charge above- market fares. Not only are such laws economically wasteful, but they are immoral in the same sense that slavery is immoral: they take away one's freedom to contract.

<comment><USER22> Are you also against big government taking away our freedom to keep the entire proceeds of those contracts, in the form of taxes, which it then redistributes to the poor?

You know, so that despite having a job paying $0.50/hr, people can still afford to buy enough food to eat for themselves, and so they can afford to live somewhere heated in the winter?

Or are you fully behind an individual's right to die of starvation and/or hypothermia, because if they really cared about living, they'd... uh... ummm... shit - what is it they'd do again?

Out of curiosity, are you and 99% of the people you know relatively well off, and not in forseeable danger of running out of food or warmth any time in the next decade or so? Do you, as the saying goes, got yours?

I got mine, but I am somewhat concerned about the other people in my community who don't. I don't want to step over their bodies, rather, I'd like to help them get out of the pit they're in - however they got there. Be that being born into poverty, or falling into a career 20 years ago which has since been automated away, or through illness, or just bad bloody luck. So I'll give to charity and food banks, but I'd rather that people could get jobs _which pay well enough_ that they don't need to use 'em.

As for the people that got theirs but are content to say "fuck you Jack" to those that don't, they're not the kind of people I want to share my community, or country, with.

With thanks to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf013ID8lCE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf013ID8lCE)

<comment><USER21> > I am somewhat concerned about the other people in my community who don't > [have theirs].

If you're concerned about people in your community who are poor, why do you oppose letting them make employment contracts which will make them better off? The minimum wage makes it illegal for them to contract for jobs that they are actually qualified for, i.e., very low-paying jobs.

Very low-paying jobs are for employment what remedial courses are for college education. Eliminating remedial courses in college which would mean that people with very low levels of education could not get started with college. The minimum wage, by eliminating low-paying jobs, prevents low-skilled people from getting started with employment.

> As for the people that got theirs but are content to say "fuck you Jack" to > those that don't, they're not the kind of people I want to share my > community, or country, with.

Not only are you against allowing people to contract, you also want to deport people who exercise their right to speak. This is not a cheap shot. When you are willing to violate a basic human right like the freedom to contract, you're likely morally blind enough to be willing to violate other human rights.

The choice of violating the right to contract and trade or letting someone starve is a false one. In fact, a major cause (though not the only cause) of poverty is restrictions on contracts and trade, mostly by governments. There are examples of this everywhere. The article mentioned taxis. Driving a car safely is a basic skill that many otherwise unskilled people can do. Taxis should be very cheap, plentiful, and temporary job for people who need something to do while they work on doing something more useful. Instead, government restricts the supply of taxis making taxis expensive and relatively scarce. This hurts people who need transportation, it hurts people who would like to provide transportation but cannot, and it hurts people who could be doing something more useful for society but don't because they are earning more than they should as taxi drivers.

<comment><USER22> "why do you oppose letting them make employment contracts which will make them better off?"

I would argue that those contracts do _not_ make those people better off. People want to work, want to be productive, want to feel like they're not taking charity to feed themselves. So they'll take 3 jobs and try to survive on 5 hours sleep a night to do that, running their health into the ground, because employers will gladly take advantage of people's need to feel productive, while setting them all against each other to drive wages as low as the most desperate person to work will accept.

"The minimum wage, by eliminating low-paying jobs, prevents low-skilled people from getting started with employment."

Huh? First, minimum-wage jobs generally are "low-paying, low-skilled" jobs. Are you saying that restaurants would prefer to employ a new dish-washer at $7.25/hr if they'd previously been... catching rats bare-handed for $2/hr? Also, how do you account for the fact that low-skilled people manage to find low-paying jobs in countries that have better minimum wages than the US?

"Not only are you against allowing people to contract, you also want to deport people who exercise their right to speak. This is not a cheap shot."

Um, yes, it is.

"When you are willing to violate a basic human right like the freedom to contract, you're likely morally blind enough to be willing to violate other human rights."

Such as, the freedom to contract yourself into slavery? Or the freedom to contact buying food and/or medicine from a supplier who has not been subjected to any FDA checks because they assure you that you can trust them that they don't need any of that gub'mint interferin'?

The US already puts limits on the kinds of contacts that people can enter into, especially with large corporations, because they realise that there is a great imbalance at work. Corporations have a lot of incentive to fuck people over if they can get away with it, and a highly concentrated amount of expertise, time, and effort to put into doing their best to make that happen. While individuals are often inexpert in many fields, and do not have the time - even if they have relevant expertise - to push back against every corporation they deal with day-to-day, and the effort they expend doing so is disproportionate to the amount of benefit they personally will receive. Individuals' efforts are diffuse compared to those of a company, even more so when compared to the efforts of many companies trying to accomplish a goal together, like drive wages down.

The US also even has limits on speech, where speech can cause an immediate and direct threat to the safety of others.

I would argue that it is not moral blindness to limit the rights of some, where the exercise of those rights affects the wellbeing of others. Yes, limiting rights is dangerous, but I would argue that that simply means that it needs to be done carefully, in persuit of a specific goal, and only as much as appears to be necessary to achieve that goal - with the acknowledgement that it not be done at all if the goal appears unattainable; not that is must not be done ever.

No-one's rights are absolute, they always start get fuzzy when the exercise thereof starts to interfere with the wellbeing of others. Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.

"Instead, government restricts the supply of taxis making taxis expensive and relatively scarce."

Yeah, I'm totally with you on the taxis thing.

<comment><USER21> > employers will gladly take advantage of people's need to feel productive, > while setting them all against each other to drive wages as low as the most > desperate person to work will accept.

By this logic, all wages should be at the minimum wage, because without government setting a lower bound, employers would just keep setting employees against each other and thus drive wages lower. Why then do some people earn more than the minimum wage? Do they work for companies that do not try select the most profitable workers?

Don't employers also have to compete with each other for the best workers?

Don't workers too have the opportunity to choose among competing employers?

> Such as, the freedom to contract yourself into slavery?

People choose to enslave themselves all the time, just not to employers. The most common slave-masters today are alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and other vices.

<comment><USER23> The argument being made is that employers have a lot more market power in the employment market than potential employees. Employers have capital, they have inertia so they can absorb a lot more risk. There are fewer employers than employees so it is easy for them to form a cartel or engage in price fixing. This especially goes for low end jobs, where a small number of large corporations make up much of the retail and fast food market. Unemployed individuals are under a lot of pressure to find employment quickly, and they know there is a lot of competition. So, employers can set wages artificially low. This power is not absolute, which explains why not every job is at minimum wage. However, this is an observable effect. The gap between rich and poor is ever widening, the middle class is eroding away, yet all the while production has been increasing. Wages are being driven down artificially low.

I wanted to ask "where does it all end?" but then I realised from the rest of your comment, you actually seem okay with slavery. Which is odd really, because you argue about human rights, but the right to freedom of movement is actually a far more fundamental and clear cut human right than the right to form contracts and do trade. In fact, if your ideals about the right to form contracts result in other people losing their right to freedom of movement, then that's a clear sign that you have lost your way.

<comment><USER21> > The gap between rich and poor is ever widening,

The "gap" between the rich and poor is a function of possible productivity. As it becomes possible for people to do more, there will be more of a spread between people who do nothing and people who max out their potential. When all farmers worked farmed by hand, the "gap" between the lazy and the industrious was a few bushels of food. But now that there are tractors and financing available, the top farmers produce maybe thousands of times more than the little farmers.

The situation is similar in every field, especially those involving mass distributions. An interesting youtube video can get millions of times more views than an ordinary video. Is this a problem? Should we force people to watch uninteresting videos, or cap the interesting videos to reduce the viewing gap?

I don't see why increased productivity should be a concern, especially since being productive today generally means imparting benefits to large numbers of people. Larry Page is very rich, but he got that way by helping everybody with an internet connection to find useful information.

> . . . the middle class is eroding away, yet all the while production has > been increasing. Wages are being driven down artificially low.

I don't understand what you mean by "artificially low" wages. Wages are generally set by supply and demand. As long as people are free to choose alternatives, they are not working for artificially low wages. An example of people with artificially low wages are prisoners who must take the work offered to them by prison officials. But the majority of people are not in prison.

> you actually seem okay with slavery

I'm all for stamping out slavery where it is committed by one person against another. No one should take away another's right to contract. But where a person voluntarily degrades himself, I see that as his choice, not mine.

> the right to freedom of movement is actually a far more fundamental and > clear cut human right than the right to form contracts and do trade.

I agree that freedom of movement is a fundamental right. I'm not sure if it's more important that the right to contract or trade. I think it's less fundamental because there are a few situations where you could legitimately not have freedom of movement (while traveling in an airplane or trespassing), but I can think of very few situations where you wouldn't have the right to contract. (You might have contracted away your right to make future contracts for a limited time and subject-matter.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> "Wonder, for just a second, if we're sharing the wrong things with the wrong people."

What wrong people? As the economy is globalized people who get paid yet don't make a contribution to the economy will be dug out - whats wrong with that? The only people who should be afraid are the ones who make money by not contributing. If you're observant enough to provide something useful that people want there will always be a place for you. If you want to coast and get paid for it then, yeah, this is gonna hurt.

<comment><USER25> >The only people who should be afraid are the ones who make money by not contributing.

Should be? sure. Are? No, those people are mostly at the top of the economy.

<comment><USER24> haha, nice point. At least some of them are at the top

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Ouch. More bitter privileged snarkiness posing as commentary.

Over the years, I have come to understand that some people just want to punch a clock. They don't want to challenge themselves during their work hours, they don't want to think too much or take too much risk. They just want to punch a clock and get a paycheck.

I am not like this, but people tell me there are many that are. I am a risk- taking person looking to challenge myself to create systems that help people.

Most of the folks who think like me fail. That's fine. That's part of our lifestyle. The smart ones have a side job and manage to continue failing until something works out.

I am beginning to feel really sorry for the other folks. The world has always been the way it is now. It's just that before you guys were helping some of the rest of us out. Now we don't need as many of you as we did before. So there are a lot of little opportunities making less money instead of just one large opportunity where you didn't have to think about it any more.

If I understand the irrationality of the human species, the next step will be to call for a minimum hour law, or some such construction. We seem to be really good at spotting problems and not so good at understanding how the problems came about in the first place. (or even whether they are problems or not. Most of the time, what passes for problem-spotting is just emoting)

<comment><USER27> So because people who would rather be an employee than an entrepreneur "don't want to challenge themselves" and "don't want to think too much"?

I believe you've contributed to more bitter privileged snarkiness posing as commentary.

Job creators like yourself don't need as many workers to do the same jobs as before but true innovators realize many people do want a challenge and to think. You failed to incentivize your employees. Those who utilize capital, technology, AND labor in this post industrial age will win.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Interesting perspective. I think the sharing economy is more of a symptom than a cause though. The economy as a whole is squeezing society. I believe that there are fundamental structural problems that require core aspects of our system to be re-engineered. I don't think its as simple as giving everyone money or more regulation or less regulation. I think we need to make improvements to the underlying paradigm. That requires testing changes that are very different from what has been tried before. And changing fundamental assumptions.

</comment><comment><USER29> I see a lot of this as a logical extension of your toxic tipping culture. For many jobs, a large part of income is already based on the hustle for tips. Every interaction is a transaction.

Australia is partially along the same path, though our strong anti-tipping culture (we have a reputation as poor tippers overseas) helps resist it.

Still, living in Norway was a great alternative perspective - where everyone in a regular job was paid a living wage, and the hustle was really only on the very outskirts of society rather than sewn right through it.

</comment><comment><USER30> This article focuses on shareconomy services that operate in legal gray areas, particularly Uber/Lyft and AirBnB. Can the same arguments be made for shareconomy services that are perfectly legal? Such as: tool sharing, camera lending, bike sharing?

<comment><USER31> In a way anything that lowers the minimum cost of living can be bad, because employers will exploit this to justify paying less and society will label the ones that don't want to lower their baseline as "overspenders" (even if it may overall encourage you to spend more on other unneeded luxuries...).

By sharing your bike or any other thing you make the cost of making use of a bike lower. A more appropriate example would be for a family to own a second or a third car. If you own a second car, you have one more item that you own but don't absolutely need, therefore an item that provides financial security and independence because you can sell it when in need of money (even if at a lower value, it's still a way to get instant cash for an emergency). This is the kind of financial security that will allow you to show your boss the middle finger or ask for a bigger wage, because you know that that if you get fired you can still get by until you find another job, or you have enough stuff to sell and move to another place even if you bank accounts get frozen etc.

This is good because:

1\. it make people less likely to accept a lower wage, driving wages up

2\. it makes people with very risky but innovative ideas willing to start a business from their garage, because they know they still have enough savings to not end up homeless if everything goes south (note: I'm referring to the kind of ideas _no sane VC would throw a penny at_ , but might very well change the world)

3\. it makes people give more to charity, in two ways: (a) most people donate at some time the things that they buy but not use and (b) the fact that you "own stuff" gives you a sense of security that makes you worry less about your future and care more about the needs of others (dunno how healthy this way of thinking is, but this is how our minds work)

I know it's not a fashionable mindset, but I think that _owning more_ , _sharing less_ and _giving (away) more_ (or reselling at way-below-market prices, which is close enough to it and doesn't hurt anyone's pride :)... ) is a much healthier, financially secure and more freedom promoting way of living than what we seem to encourage today! (because when you "share" you must create restrictions and limit people's freedoms, whereas when you give away something you also give away the freedom to use however they see it fit, and when you own something you don't have to limit freedom by imposing "fair use" policies because you are the single user)

<comment><USER32> I don't see how a depreciating second car works better than a bank account for what you are describing.

I guess there are probably some differences in the way people approach payments that they have to make and payments to their own savings accounts. But still, I'm pretty sure that saving more and consuming less is a more effective strategy for financial security than buying things you don't need.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Those services are making certain market transactions more efficient and that is a good thing. Whether people realize that not all things should be viewed as markets and transactions is another matter altogether.

</comment><comment><USER34> > I did not yet understand then that those having or wanting just a job—just a > job with decent pay—would be disparaged as "takers."

Where is this true? I haven't seen this even in SV, much less on The Outside.

<comment><USER35> There is an implicit attitude I've felt in the dev community that you're supposed to spend every waking moment of your life absorbing information about your work.

Seeing how I'm commenting at 11 PM on a Sunday on this I guess I'm among those that do spend every waking moment on this stuff, but a lot of developers don't because its _just a job_.

Being up to date is one thing, doing it on your off time is another.

<comment><USER34> Sure, I agree there's lots of professional pressure on our outside-work time. But I haven't seen the attitude that if you're not _self-employed_ , or aspire to be an entrepreneur, then you're a parasite, a "taker".

(My read on the "just a job" in the linked article is that it was referring to people not wanting to freelance, rather than people who wanted to work-for- the-weekend.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The author is operating under the strange notion that doing a transaction outside the context of full-time work, or operating a business, is illegal.

Maybe businesses like Lyft, Uber and AirBnB facilitate people working in legal grey areas, but they also facilitate direct individual-customer relationships. These open up markets, and are therefore bad for incumbents (e.g. people already in the taxi industry) but good for people who for whatever weren't able to work in that industry before.

And what's with referring to people as "kids"? Is this how you assert your status as alpha male?

<comment><USER36> Just to clarify for the downvoters:

>Today there are people all over Baltimore subleasing places they don't own, peddling without a license, hacking. This is a criminal offense. The law does not recognize the right of the people to earn enough to eat.

>All these entrepreneurs, most of them running little scams to get by, all of them held in contempt by the law and by most of society. Lyft and Uber and Air BnB face legal sanction too—but it's just a civil matter.

The author clearly conflates the two issues of (A) not working for an employer or company, and (B) transactions that are illegal.

I already said how these _may_ be linked in some cases. But it is unreasonable to imply that any work that is not done for an employer (preferable while working full time) must be some kind of scam.

EDIT: I'm not sure I like the new HN where I can't say something that is manifestly true (as proven by my quotes) without getting massively downvoted.

<comment><USER37> He's actually making a much simpler argument that may be unfamiliar to those not familiar with the underground economies of the inner city.

What he's saying is that the basic transaction that Uber or Lyrt facilitate is not novel, that people have been using single family residences as informal transient hotels and have been engaging in street corner unlicensed taxi type transportation for decades.

Except when they do it, it's often a criminal offense. The drivers are ticketed or even arrested, the people who rent out rooms on a nightly basis are evicted or charged with municipal violations.

They are primarily poorer and blacker. Then well financed tech companies come along and do the exact same thing -- literally -- and instead of being seen as a civic nuisance at worst or a sign of a severely crippled local economy at best, it's called "sharing" and "fun" and hailed as the next big thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> If your marginal freetime is worth less than driving for Lyft, then it probably was before Lyft.

Either own the code and machines that these services run on, or prepare for either A) Basic income, leading towards crime and social isolation and the end of civilization for your class, or B) Slavery (WPA style), in order to prevent A. If you use your power of selective history the right way, you'll get B and enjoy it.

I, as someone of non-genius IQ, will use my still-existent income to enjoy the metaverse and avoid major cities.

</comment><comment><USER39> What's with all the hit pieces on the sharing economy as of late?

There's another piece on the front page here too - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7651968](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7651968)

I'm struggling to figure out what the big problem is with more people becoming entrepreneurs?

<comment><USER40> Ok come on. You can at least comprehend the thesis of the piece. "Entrepreneur" drivers have poor job security. Is this a fundamentally better model for the middle class than being an Avon salesperson? That is a totally legit issues to discuss.

This may be a perfectly good short-term way to earn some cash, but the article is about the bigger picture for our economy. Don't pretend to not understand when you're really just tuning it out.

<comment><USER39> >"Entrepreneur" drivers have poor job security

That's true of entrepreneurs in general. I think most of the people doing that would rather have "poor job security" than "no job security" (or the alternative of simply no job) - which is the case for almost all workers without specific special skills.

> Is this a fundamentally better model for the middle class than being an Avon > salesperson?

Comparing it to MLM who's business model is dependent on replicating itself is a completely different use case than what this is.

<comment><USER40> There is a bigger point that the article tries to call our attention to. If the choice is between "poor" job security and "no" job security, that is a pretty terrible choice. It does not blame Lyft et al directly. It asks us to consider the broader implications for our economy, and if anything, whether the "sharing economy" is truly its savior. That is the analogy with Avon et al for the previous generation (not the precise business model).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Web App for SpaceX Ridesharing - <AUTHOR> https://rideshare.spacex.com/ <comment><USER2> Some really interesting insights here as someone who hasn't thought too much about how payloads are sourced and organized.

It's a nice simple web app too that just sticks to the point.</comment>


Ask HN:  What's a Good Professional Font You Use? - <AUTHOR>

I'm putting my resume together... any suggestions? <comment><USER2> If you are on Windows, new "C" fonts (bundled with Office 2007 or Vista) are nice and fresh (compared to older classics that are everywhere).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambria_(typeface)>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calibri>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candara>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantia_(typeface)>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corbel_(typeface)>

</comment><comment><USER3> I found this to be a good guide to the design of a resume:

<http://www.lifeclever.com/give-your-resume-a-face-lift/>

It discusses fonts, layout with a good eye for design.

</comment><comment><USER4> Use a serif font for headings and a sans font for text. For code blocks or anything requiring monospace be sure it clearly defines characters (like profont) such as 0.

You can go all Sans-Serif or all Serif but it won't be the same as combining the two. Going Sans-Serif for headlines and Serif for text kind of works but you have a narrower range of choices.

We use a Serif font for headlines and a Sans-Serif for body text, freeing us up to use the Sans-Serif font exclusively in certain situations for headlines where needed, and the Serif font for bolder statements.

</comment><comment><USER5> Whatever font the LaTeX resume template uses..

<http://www.rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/resumes/>

<comment><USER6> They use <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Modern> and can optionally use Helvetica or New Century Schoolbook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I use Georgia and I have used Bookman at times. They are both reasonably open styles and look good on both a screen and paper. The old standard is Times New Roman, but Times was designed for legibility while cramming as much text into a newspaper column as possible. I think it looks cramped.

</comment><comment><USER8> i like georgia and verdana -- shouldn't have any issues if you end up having to send something as a .doc, and they're good basic-but-not-too-common fonts. use one for headings and the other for body, either way works.

<comment><USER9> These have been my preferred resume fonts as well, but my upvote was for the key point you make about issues at the other end. Especially with a resume, you don't want the fonts to not exist on the recipient's machine because a lot of formatting will be lost (and your text may be replaced by Courier New - aagh).

I've worked with a few companies now that have used specialist fonts for marketing; it's fine in pdf form but most documents end up being Arial or Verdana anyway to be safe.

<comment><USER8> yeah, i considered mentioning what fonts i'd use in the case of converting to pdf, but doc is such an HR standard. i've had bigger tech companies ask me to send doc after first passing along a pdf.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A resume you plan to print or one you intend to be read on a screen?

I really do prefer a good serif font for printing and sans-serif for things intended to be read online.

</comment><comment><USER11> Helvetica

</comment><comment><USER12> I use Georgia on my resume with a minimalist layout and receive compliments on it often.

</comment><comment><USER13> I would use Helvetica Neue but I am not sure whether this font is available on Windows.

</comment><comment><USER14> The Serif, Avenir, Black Slabbath

</comment><comment><USER15> Wingdings.</comment>


TED Talk - How to make your consumers happy - Malcom Gladwell (video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/20 I think this is very useful for startup founders. <comment><USER2> Malcolm Gladwell rarely says anything too revolutionary, but he always says it in such an engaging and fascinating way as to make what we already know seem amazing. The 'tale of a user who doesn't know what he wants' always reminds me of an old Simpsons episode where Homer gets to design his own car. Perhaps that could be a definition for 'popular science': that which is suitable for consumption via the Simpsons.

Still, one of my favorite anecdotes from Blink is the tale of the identical ice cream: the same ice cream was wrapped in two different packages, one plain, the other fancy, and taken around to the public for taste tests. People actually reported that the ice cream in the 'fancier' package _tasted_ better. What's great about this story is that it's an excellent way to explain to someone the value of beauty to usability. Given two functionally identical products, users will believe that one is _easier to use_ simply by virtue of it being aesthetically pleasing. I once saw a presentation at a UPA (Usability Professionals Assoc) Conference where a study showed just that - a product with identical information architecture was run through two usability tests: one where the product had a rudimentary look and feel, and one where the look and feel had been touched up by a graphic designer. User data showed that people felt the prettier version was easier for them to use, even though it took them the same time to complete tasks in both versions. Now, as an interaction designer myself, I would hope this argument is never used to dismiss the importance of interaction design and information architecture. We can't use aesthetics to 'put lipstick on the pig,' as one of my coworkers is fond of saying. But if you've taken the time to make a really usable product which meets a user need, imagine how much people will love it if you ALSO make it beautiful. That, for me, is the definition of a "delightful experience."

<comment><USER3> Yah, the after-the-fact layer of beauty doesn't work so much. I had to push pretty hard recently for a redesign of an interface _before_ work began on a port to a new architecture.

Somehow folks thought they would build everything, then make it better/usable/pretty. But the process needs to be the other way around at such a critical time.</comment></comment>


The vanishing began at night, frightened families packed after hearing the news - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/us/after-ruling-hispanics-flee-an-alabama-town.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> I feel bad for these families, but nothing really has changed. The officers are just enforcing existing immigration laws. There are legal ways of getting into the US and more immigrants should use this route in the future or suffer the consequences of getting booted out of the country.

In most other countries in the world, the same thing will happen.

<comment><USER3> I wonder why those legal ways are not more used?</comment></comment>


Eye projection mini computer to be sold by NEC - <AUTHOR> http://news.techworld.com/sme/3311670/nec-to-sell-mini-computer-with-eye-projection-screen/

<comment><USER2> I love this idea. There have been (for some time now) systems that focus a laser onto the user's retina, but they never took off. I really want one. This device is, unfortunately, quite pricey. And sadly it's not likely to become mainstream enough to drop out of the expensive industrial price band into consumer pricing.</comment>


HypriotOS: Docker playground for Raspberry Pi - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hypriot.com/post/get-your-all-in-one-docker-playground-now-hypriotos-reloaded/ <comment><USER2> This should be on [https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/](https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/)

<comment><USER3> Or better yet, integrated into Raspbian, so that containers would be "apt-get install docker" away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just got a second rpi for that purpose only. That submission couldn't be more timely as I didn't see it after my day of Googling.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great to hear that. Still lots of people do not know us. So spread the word :)

<comment><USER4> The rpi sea is vast and moving. From a distance it's not easy to follow.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wherever you are - the Docker Pirates are coming for your Pi!

<comment><USER5> More Docker Pirates on Raspberry Pi -> Pirateship for Pi [http://openpipekit.github.io/pirate.sh/#!index.md](http://openpipekit.github.io/pirate.sh/#!index.md)

I think it's Raspbian + hypriot kernal + Docker + other special sauce like the ability to plug a program in via a USB stick

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> To get you started go to: [http://blog.hypriot.com/getting- started/](http://blog.hypriot.com/getting-started/)

Or help from our community: [https://gitter.im/hypriot/talk](https://gitter.im/hypriot/talk)

</comment><comment><USER6> Do you guys post the process by which you compile this image anywhere? I was very impressed the last time I saw you put out an update because I have tried in the past (as a learning excercise) to do the exact same thing. Compiling a kernel that supports docker for the pi was quite a challenge. For me, at least.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that's true. It can be a pain in the ass.

Here is our repo: [https://github.com/hypriot/rpi- kernel](https://github.com/hypriot/rpi-kernel)

Cheers!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> How is this different from snappy ubuntu on RPi?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not exactly sure where they differ. But the most obvious thing is that Snappy has a completely different way of installing packages and its own package format, too.

HypriotOS on the other hand just uses the standard Debian way of installing and managing software.</comment></comment>


Clipboard.js: Modern Copy to Clipboard - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/zenorocha/clipboard.js <comment><USER2> Thank you for sharing this, it could not have come at a better time for a little side project I've been cooking up.</comment>


Gordon Ramsay could teach software engineers a thing or two? - <AUTHOR> http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2006/11/30/gordon-ramsay-could-teach-software-engineers-a-thing-or-two/ <comment><USER2> The article tries to match software troubles and problem to a kitchen. Maybe right but I don't think Mr Ramsay's way to motivating people should work in any creative (software) or peopleware shop. Shouting at people usually don't work except in the military (and I'm not convinced that it really works there in the phase of teaching people things they can't do).

For a different approach build a team like [http://books.google.se/books?id=LgHHfzec33UC&dq=Software...](http://books.google.se/books?id=LgHHfzec33UC&dq=Software+for+Your+Head&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=sv&ei=WEecSc- XJ4-C-gbC-azWBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result)

<comment><USER3> Labelling Ramsay as "the guy that yells at people to motivate them" is really doing him a disservice I think. Yes he shouts at people, but that's usually when they aren't pulling their weight in the kitchen, or are being stubborn while their business is clearly suffering. The show is, surprisingly enough, about more than him yelling, though admittedly that is fun to watch ;)

Ramsay's philosophy is basically the same as PG's "make something people want". He really is very good at devising menus that do just that and promoting them (though arguably his celebrity status helps a little there). The restaurant owners that he "rescues" all seem to be eerily like that guy who wrote the article about how opening a cafe was his lifelong ambition, but it ruined his life, because he was too caught up in living the dream to run it as a business.

I really enjoy his show and I really respect his pragmatism, focus, and love for what he does. It's a pleasure to watch. If you haven't seen it definitely check it out.

<comment><USER4> The british version is much better, a lot less yelling and gimmicks -- more about each restaurant.</comment></comment></comment>


John Perry Barlow – Online privacy double agent - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2014/01/online-privacy <comment><USER2> Barlow seems to agree with David Brin's thesis in _" Transparent Society"_[1] that the inevitable loss of privacy of ordinary citizens will correspond with an increase in transparency of governments, the powerful, and the aparatus they create.

This is dangerously naive optimism. The asymmetry in power and resources ensures that no such balance in transparency is possible. Ordinary citizens do not have gigantic datacenters and armies of mathematicians, spies, and computer scientists at their beck and call to monitor the government with.

That's not to say there hasn't been some notable progress with respect to government transparency, but they are a few fireflies when compared to the floodlights that the powers that be have at their disposal.

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society)

<comment><USER3> Depends on how you define power. Power to me is command over resources: land, labour, capital, energy, knowledge. As the economy progresses, knowledge becomes the key resource to maintaining secrets. But knowledge is leaky and always getting obsoleted by new knowledge.

Today, privacy is enforced by a power imbalance in the knowledge between how to encrypt or verify and the power to forcibly decrypt or forge. What happens if hacks become commonplace tools? If Assymetric encryption gets compromised through a new tool that can factor primes more quickly on a cloud, for example. Will global commerce halt? Will global espionage stop? I doubt it. More likely we will erect broader political and social structures to fight forgery, and otherwise to expect transparency.

<comment><USER4> But in context of mass surveillance we are talking about a power and capital intensive system for producing that secrely kept knowledge ("intelligence"). It hasn't been about breaking crypto, just stick and carrot to get cooperation from infra providers and then building systems to refine it all.

This'd is not about to become accessible for the average citizen.

<comment><USER3> "It hasn't been about breaking crypto"

It has to a large extent, and will continue to be so as non-cooperating application/service providers encrypt their end-to-end data to minimize snooping.

The final source of power I neglected is the power to incarcerate or do violence, of course. Though the average citizen doesn't have that power to compel the installation of a tap on the AT&T backbone. But it's a very crude power that can only be taken so far without backlash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't really get a sense from this article that Barlow is a double agent.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. Presumably, the article's use of quotation marks means he described himself that way. I'm guessing it was tongue-in-cheek, though.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you setup machines for local development? - <AUTHOR> We're using Boxen at my company to provision our dev environments, but having huge problems maintaining it: Externalities beyond our control (homebrew, dependencies, system updates) are breaking the provisioning process, and we're only finding out & trying to fix them when onboarding a new employee. Boxen's maintenance cost is too high to continue to be a viable option.
We've been exploring alternatives, but not really found anything which will help us get a new hire up & running as soon as they walk through the door.
Docker has seemed like the best bet so far, but its I/O performance on Mac is abysmal, and the workarounds for that (Docker Sync) are unreliable due to other bugs in Docker for Mac.
So, I'm wondering how you / your company's manage setting up development environments? <comment><USER2> We're pretty happy with Vagrant VMs on VirtualBox on MacOS.</comment>