App-based driving service Uber has made such a name for itself in the startup world and with the public that many other companies are now quick to jump on the bandwagon and label themselves the “Uber” of a host of other products and services.
The comparison has become so popular that businesses providing convenient access to consumers seeking instant-gratification have been classified in the so-called “Uber economy.”
Writer Leo Mirani recently wrote a piece for the business news publication Quartz exploring the real reasons he thinks this convenience economy has taken off in the years following the financial crisis.
“There is no denying the seductive nature of convenience - or the cold logic of businesses that create new jobs, whatever quality they may be” Mirani wrote. “But the notion that brilliant young programmers are forging a newfangled ‘instant gratification’ economy is a falsehood. Instead, it is a rerun of the oldest sort of business: middlemen insinuating themselves between buyers and sellers.”
Mirani is essentially arguing that the instant-gratification economy isn’t built on empowerment, convenience or technology, but income inequality.
His evidence for that conclusion is that while Uber-type companies cite the use of technology and smartphones to connect customers with people seeking work, those people wouldn’t be agreeing to participate in the market if they weren’t struggling financially.
He argues that it’s not so much the smartphones connecting people as the fact that there’s a large enough labor pool willing to work at lower wages to make the business model work.
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