Trends in the Valley: the gig economy
The ‘gig economy’ is not new. People have been working on short-term contracts, a freelance basis or otherwise ‘per gig’ — by increments of product or time — pretty much throughout the history of employment.
What has changed though is how new technologies, apps and ways of connecting employers, suppliers and customers have expanded the gig economy into new areas and approaches, such as Uber for transport, Airbnb for accommodation and TaskRabbit for skills.
The ‘human cloud’
The ‘gig economy’ in its modern conception grew out of the economic meltdown of 2007–8, after which large numbers of workers lost long-term, steady jobs. Concurrent with this was a surge in digital platforms and smart devices, driven by rapid-growth startups. This relatively sudden excess of skills, time and resources found an easy outlet in online, app-based services offering pay for on-demand jobs.
As these gigs have moved further from basic services into other sectors (accounting, legal advice, data analysis, even video production), a new term has emerged: the ‘human cloud’. Akin to automated cloud computing, a specific task is submitted into the online aether and a remote army of often unseen and unheard contractors return an output for an agreed price.
This scenario is often presented as a ‘win-win’: contractors work on their own terms, and companies save on costs associated with permanent employees. The problems though are implied in just how impersonal—and dehumanising — a term like ‘human cloud’ sounds. Gig workers are not regarded in the traditional sense of an employee and so have few protections: against unfair dismissal, or rights to redundancy payments, a national minimum wage, sickness or holiday pay. Although various lawsuits have attempted to redress the imbalance, it’s clear there is more than enough supply and demand for ‘gigging’ to remain.
Clouds on the horizon
The gig economy is not only competitive for its workforce. Startups in Silicon Valley and beyond are constantly vying to out-optimise or tap a previously unused resource or approach.
One major area of innovation is blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. Given that gig workers are increasingly free from traditional, fixed positions and are already using cloud-based services to complete projects, it’s no surprise that cryptocurrencies are becoming more popular as a means of seamless international payment. For example, CanYa (a ‘decentralised peer-to-peer marketplace of services’) offers payments in a variety of digital currencies, including its own.
There is also a focus on the implications of remote working. Connectivity is crucial for such a dispersed workforce, and so any developments that make communication simpler and clearer is of particular interest. There are already a huge number of AI chatbots in the field, but I think advances in augmented and virtual reality assisted communications will be as important — especially as large blue-chip companies attempt to integrate remote workers into their established workforce.
Art and the gig economy
In a lot of ways, art and the gig economy feel like they’re on the same side. Not only are most artists already familiar with the realities of irregular paid work, there’s almost an ideological alignment: they’ve always resisted the dictates of ‘normal society’ to strike out and define new ways of working.
However, I think art’s benefitting from ‘gigging’ will be limited. Although some aspects of the industry do rely on gig workers (e.g. transport and logistics) and some online service marketplaces have appeared (e.g. Vastari connects curators, collectors and galleries in order to streamline exhibitions), art creation does not fit as neatly into the defined briefs, projects, deadlines and teams that define other types of gig work.
Where the gig economy and human cloud are about converting surplus time, skills and resources into financial gain, we can rightly ask of artists — what would a ‘surplus of creativity’ actually look like? Sites like Fiverr already offer creative services for businesses and brands, but these are explicitly commercially-minded; I don’t see fine artists ever using this type of platform for establishing their careers as independent and ground-breaking creators.
Go back a decade though and the idea of a decentralised workforce paid in 1s and 0s might have seemed equally unlikely. Maybe in another 10 years, curators and collectors will be submitting briefs directly to a new generation of artists…
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