Instaserfs (I of III)

Another installment of Benjamen Walker’s Theory of Everything

In the sharing economy no one can hear you work.

This is because companies like Uber, Lyft, Postmates and others only employ “partners” or independent contractors. So your host decided to partner with Andrew Callaway, a 25 year old San Francisco native, to find out what its like to work in the sharing economy.

You’re on your own

Andrew is about to begin his month surviving off of the Sharing Economy. He’s signing up to become a worker for as many of these apps as possible but before he gets to, he’s already running into some problems.In order to drive for Uber he has to get the scratches fixed on his bumper, he get’s an estimate of $2,10o. No, there is no money in the podcast budget for this

Andrew Postmates is stressing him out with their anti-human contact policy of no shaking hands or hugs.

“Maybe the problem isn’t that these companies don’t see us as employees — maybe the real problem is that they don’t see us as humans…”

Post- Uberpocalypse

Pando Daily technology journalist Sarah Lacey has had a recent dispute with Uber. She wrote a post about why she deleted the app on her phone and it got a lot of attention — but it also attracted a particularly disturbing attention from Uber’s executive director at an off the record journalists dinner.

Sarah believes we must stop the uberization of everything.

“People are so seduced by really appealing software and a good service that they don’t think down the road 20 steps from now what would it be like…”

The $1 Tip

Andrew drives his car for Lyft and shops for Instacart.

At 7AM after an 8 hours shift, he drives some VC bros to Sutro Tower, they tip him a dollar.