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The following is a Truthout interview with Steven Hill, author of RAW DEAL: How the “Uber Economy” and Runaway Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers.
Mark Karlin: To start off, can you briefly define what you see as the emerging “shared economy” as exemplified by Uber and Airbnb?
Steven Hill: The sharing economy (which is also known as the gig or on-demand economy) includes a large number of companies spread across many industries and occupations. Those companies are engaged in activities as diverse as transport (taxi alternatives like Uber and Lyft), delivery (Postmates and Instacart), day labor (TaskRabbit, Upwork, Handy), rental and exchange (Etsy, Peerby, Parking Panda, Yerdle) and home rental (Airbnb, VRBO). The best-known companies are explicitly commercial and profit-making, others are projects with an environmental focus, aiming to reduce waste and consumption.
But virtually all of the sharing economy companies feature an innovative use of Web and app-based platforms to connect buyers and sellers (and swappers for noncommercial transactions) of goods, labor and services. The transactions often are called “peer to peer” – between you and another individual – rather than “peer to business,” between you and a store or business, a digital space that was pioneered originally by websites such as eBay and Amazon.