Worker Support Infrastructure in the Emerging Peer Economy

* Master of Science MIT THESIS. Reading between the lines: Blueprints for a worker support infrastructure in the emerging peer economy. Denise Fung Cheng. June 2014

URL = http://hellodenise.com/mit-thesis.pdf

Abstract

"Look around you. What unassuming skills or assets are just bursting with potential? Meet the peer economy, where people monetize skills and assets they already have using online, peer-to-peer marketplaces. Lyft, Shapeways, Etsy, Skillshare… these platforms enable strangers to transact confidently. Instead of education, reskilling or being network rich, new marketplaces emerge everyday to reconfigure people’s existing assets and skills into income generating opportunities. Airbnb, TaskRabbit, KitchenSurfing, Postmates… From small-scale manufacturing to space sharing to personal services, amateurs and professionals alike can easily jump in.

As an alternative to full-time employment with benefits—a 20th century model worn thin—the peer economy (sometimes called the “sharing economy”) is setting imaginations on fire. At its best, the peer economy can reintegrate people who are defined out of the traditional workplace and, therefore, the traditional economy (the elderly, homemakers, those with varying physical and mental ableness, those at risk for human trafficking, etc.). At its worst, it exploits human labor and degrades human dignity.

Between positive and negative speculations, I have identified five particularly sticky issues:

1. Can peer economy opportunities comprise a livable work lifestyle?

2. Who is accountable when something goes wrong?

3. Do legal classifications override social relationships?

4. Can providers cultivate a collective voice?

5. How do peer economy actors historically contextualize the model?

The thesis begins with a historical overview of how we have arrived at this moment of possibility. The second act brings readers up to speed on conversation among investors, startups, cities, policy makers, entrenched interests, media, scholars and critics, and labor advocates. As antecedents to the peer economy, I introduce marginalized movements in the third chapter that could inform how the peer economy develops; I believe that this space can be a distributed network that matchmakces providers’ needs with capacity across the sector. From 2013-2014, I conducted ethnographic field research to suss 4 out emergent needs among peer economy providers, and I summarize the results in chapter four before finally tying together why the peer economy—regardless of speculation—has been so captivating.

This thesis is a confluence of historical analysis, economic theory, sociology, rhetorical analysis, qualitative and ethnographic fieldwork, and legal precedents that culminates in interventions for the peer economy. First and foremost, it considers whether the peer economy is a livable work lifestyle. The peer economy is a charismatic and rapidly spreading concept that is fundamentally transforming the way many people think about employment." (http://hellodenise.com/mit-thesis.pdf)

Summary

Denise Cheng:

"The normative understanding of work is imploding. Throughout most of the U.S.’ twentieth century, landing a job was equivalent to a lifetime of smooth sailing, but today’s Americans are always anticipating the next round of layoffs. This thesis kicks off with the rise and ebb of gainful employment through the 20th century. It then introduces the peer economy as a well-positioned, future work model for mainstream adoption. I run through the peer/sharing economy ideology before introducing stakeholders—providers, companies, investors, entrenched interests, regulators, cities, labor advocates, strategists, scholars and critics, and media—as well as known problems in the space.

I suggest three historical antecedents from which to draw from:

• The domestic workers movement for identifying emergent needs, organizing strategies, and as a natural partner in procuring labor rights

• An indictment of legal work status in the US and an exhortation to expand its classifications beyond “employee” and “independent contractor.”

• The franchise dilemma offers legal terms — ”convenance of good faith and fair dealing” and “contract of adhesion” — that capture tension between providers and platforms that both groups have had difficulty articulating. These terms are necessary to carry on a truly productive conversation of ethical issues in the peer economy.

The fourth chapter summarizes qualitative and ethnographic fieldwork in New York City and San Francisco. I interviewed various stakeholders with an emphasis on social welfare. Instead of summing up known issues, the chapter conveys how providers see themselves in relation to companies and customers.

This thesis ends by locating the peer economy within a larger movement to redefine work. It contextualizes the peer economy as one model and articulates the motivation among all stakeholders, which applies across labor models: “The excitement that I have observed around the peer economy—even when it is naïve—is a recognition that now is a chance to do things better.” (http://hidenise.com/post/54356670782/mit-thesis-reading-between-the-lines-blueprints)

Excerpt

Defining the peer economy

(it would seem that the author's understanding of the peer economy is the commercial sharing economy - MB)

Denise Cheng:

"The peer economy is a framework of online, peer-to-peer marketplaces that enable people to monetize skills and assets they already have (see figure 4). To a provider, the peer economy is immediate relief. It provides an income stream while also freeing providers to choose when to work, what to do, and where to complete the work. Providers sidestep traditional constraints such as geography or rigid work schedules. Those who did not find inclusion in a traditional workplace—stay-at-home carers, the elderly, those varying in physical and mental ableness—suddenly have an empowering way to generate income.

The peer economy is also a beacon of light in the technological doom-and-gloom. The darkest view of technology is that automated processes will one-day master all human tasks. In contrast, the peer economy represents technology’s power to be a humanizing force. The digital divide is still very real, but Internet access is taking on qualities of a basic utility (thereby underscoring the urgency around the digital divide). Where once networked communication was only possible through private, expensive infrastructure, whole worlds are now accessible to private citizens at the cost of Internet access. In commerce, expensive infrastructures are one of the highest barriers to entry and innovation, but when it comes to communication, the Internet is bulldozing that cost. The ease of communication, lowered startup costs, and rapid scalability are all affordances of digital technology. Companies that have taken advantage of these lowered barriers—peer economy companies included—can test their concepts in the marketplace with very low costs. Additionally, code—the scaffolding for these marketplaces—is far less expensive than tangible equipment. These affordances cross many scales; with marketplace tools at their disposal, peer economy providers can try out the income opportunity without a cost-prohibitive, upfront investment.

In addition to its accessibility, vocal supporters praise the peer economy for its role in reducing consumption (and, inversely, reducing demands on industrial manufacturing that contribute to environmental degradation). Consultant Rachel Botsman often uses the example of a drill (Botsman and Rogers 2011). The average drill only gets a few sessions of use. A person who remodels a house may buy a drill, and once the remodeling is complete, the drill sits around indefinitely. Meanwhile, plenty of people would like to use a drill for one-time projects, but they may not want to invest in a drill that will end up in their own equipment purgatory. Lending via the peer economy means one-timers invest only what it costs to rent a drill, drill owners earn some money, and the drill has now been revived with a purpose. Peer economy enthusiasts would point out another layer to this transaction: connection between strangers. Because the drill owner lent the drill to a one-time user, a connection is forged. This connection could stay as simple as that transaction, but it has the potential for people to exchange stories: Why did the owner buy the drill? What project is the one-timer working on? Perhaps a friendship will grow out of this transaction. Even if it does not, two strangers have glimpsed each other’s lives, which might be different than their own.

This aspect of connection, solidarity, and humanity is a selling point for peer economy companies, seeing as the peer economy business model is built on an inherently inefficient “inventory.” There are boundaries to optimizing human performance—including physical limitations, societal values, and quality of life— before it is outstripped by automated performances. However, as a selling point, every transaction with a provider is a tailored and irreplicable experience. Therefore, the emphasis is on assets and basic skills, which frees people from the vicious cycle of human capital investment. Peer economy companies boast about the communal nature of peer-to-peer transactions. By doing so, they position their weakness as a strength. Ultimately, though, the peer economy’s great innovation is systematizing trust and reliability between strangers." (http://hellodenise.com/mit-thesis.pdf)

Policy Recommendations

Denise Cheng:

RECOMMENDATION #1 - Incorporating financial literacy into workforce development training.

"In order to set the scene, a city employee said to me that workforce development training was an outdated model. How would a workforce development curriculum look moving forward? Based on the collected data, there are at least two branches I would recommend for any workforce training: personal financial literacy and navigating return on investment.

The providers I interviewed acknowledged that there are seasonal rhythms that affect their work frequency. Etsy sellers experience a spike in demand during the holiday season. Airbnb hosts have more business during vacation season and conference season. TNC drivers receive more requests during long weekends. But valleys happen just as often. A traditional employee is accustomed to a steady paycheck because companies smooth over the peaks and valleys. As independent contractors, providers must manage the same extremes for themselves. Providers who rely heavily on the peer economy may be able to coast off savings or projected earnings. However, to weather the feast and famine, providers need to develop personal financial literacy. These include such basics as distinguishing between revenue and income, setting aside earnings for taxes, and record keeping as a planning tool to set minimum work hours across seasons.

Return on investment is another critical planning tool. Providers appreciate the flexibility of their work because they value their time. Time is a valuable asset that can be divided between due diligence and return on investment. Due diligence is the minimum amount of time for upkeep, but return on investment is the ability to weigh whether something is worth more time and effort. TaskRabbits already have a sense of this, and Airbnb prices account for the amount of work that hosts are willing to put into the experience. However, providers are playing the long game when it comes to platforms such as Etsy, Shapeways, or KitchenSurfing. Since there are endless micromoves to make, providers must weigh whether the probability of their desired outcome is worth their sweat equity, which might be better spent elsewhere.

RECOMMENDATION #2 - As companies grow, they need to convey the growth in wealth for their providers.

The best-known peer economy companies have closed on several rounds of venture capital funding. With this increase to companies’ coffers, providers want reassurance that their wealth will also increase. In the cooperative world, this is called co-wealth generation, and it makes cooperatives attractive. When co- wealth is mentioned, the easiest examples to point to are equity or dividends. The cooperative model could be worth working toward, but in the meantime, there is room for other types of co-wealth generation. Companies or peer advocacy groups can build programs that have real material benefits for providers. The focus group participants made no mistake that peer economy companies are backed by venture capital. In the San Francisco Bay Area, there is a normative understanding that the typical venture capital agreement requires rapid business scaling. This has led to suspicion and discontent among some provider communities—TNC drivers question whether social media advertisements boasting up to $35 per work hour are realistic when the company aggressively onboards new drivers (long-time drivers perceive this as an oversupply), and some long-time Etsy sellers oppose Etsy’s move to allow more than just handmade and vintage products ; they believe that when faced with questions of growth, Etsy chose the side of their star sellers rather than remaining the champion for small vendors. Scaling in the peer economy is not symmetrical. As demand for services and products grow, companies can recruit more providers. Providers, on the other hand, can only scale their individual efforts to a point. Some services require an exchange of time, equipment, and presence for a single transaction (i.e.: TNCs and personal service platforms). Others have more room for scaling (i.e.: multiple property management on shared space platforms and production methods on small manufacturing platforms). It is more crucial for platforms whose providers cannot scale indefinitely to create a sense of co-wealth generation. While equity and member dividends are highly unlikely, there are ways to leverage collective might for material benefit. As mentioned in a previous chapter, collective bargaining could make supply chain costs more affordable (for KitchenSurfing chefs, this is the market price of seasonal ingredients). There might be a tiered benefit program for active providers who are striving to earn a full livelihood. Whatever the avenue and whatever they might be doing already, companies must clearly communicate co-wealth generation.

RECOMMENDATION #3 - The value of fostering community between providers and consumers

Platforms can create a more pleasant work atmosphere if they foster mutual respect between providers and consumers, and they should make those efforts visible. Providers think of themselves as more than just a service. Hosts who also use Airbnb as guests (crossovers) think of it as a better and more personable stay than the typical hotel experience, and they expect their guests to feel the same and act accordingly. TaskRabbits may need the money, but they want the tasks to be more than just a transaction. Providers are aggravated when they perceive that consumers are neither considerate nor respectful in kind. TNC drivers stressed the need for passenger education; the focus group participants were particularly worried about how passengers rank them on a five-point scale. Their perception was that Headquarters (HQ) read anything lower than a five as a red flag, even though HQ had not done a sufficient job communicating their five-point understanding to passengers. Due to territorial tension with taxi drivers and public transportation, drivers worried about idling in high-traffic areas while passengers take their time to make it to the car . Meanwhile, most consumers certainly do not intend to be the source of concern, especially repeat users who appreciate peer-to-peer marketplaces. Drivers and passengers need to be gracious with each other, explains Emily Castor, Lyft’s director of community relations. When Castor knows she is running late, she asks her idling driver to start the fare (Castor 2014).

Aside from crossovers, community is scant across some provider-consumer platform divides. Community potential on providers’ side is strong; when I first began my field research and asked community managers to point to signs of the community, these materialized in providers’ relationships with one another. Consumers come to peer-to-peer marketplaces to fulfill a need; community is secondary to them. Consumers are a constituency—a group of people who have the same interest but not necessarily a mutual and lasting bond because of that interest. There is kindling for a provider-consumer community, and the sparks are visible in individual transactions (it is reflected in what our previous provider calls “friend crushes”). However, critics and skeptics perceive a power dynamic between providers and customers that reifies class divides. In terms of income, consumers are typified as the “haves,” and providers are the “have-nots.” This speculative tension between providers and consumers has yet to manifest in any explosive way, but to maintain respect beyond the few crossovers (those who are both providers and consumers on the same platform), companies should invest official effort to harmonize the two groups. Growing these embers into something more may grow the compassion and graciousness that distinguish a human-centered economy.

In the end, we harvested rich qualitative data, but we take our results with a grain of salt. There were obstacles to our recruitment methods; we wanted to reach out to providers who ranged in time spent on peer economy platforms to the percentage of income they earn from those platforms. Time and incomecorrelate with community participation, and reaching out to occasional peer economy providers proved difficult. The focus groups took place in January 2014, but we began publicizing and outreach in November 2013. Even with two months’ lead to target what is presumably a wired population (peer-to- peer platforms are optimized for mobile transactions), we still did not have sufficient channels to reach people who are not interested in the peer economy for camaraderie or philosophical interest. Since we sourced participants primarily from Peers’ 10,000 members in the San Francisco Bay Area, we were aware that these providers were self-selecting, eager to stay on top of peer economy developments and probably subscribed to the ideology of the peer economy. In Ethnography - Step-by-Step, David M. Fetterman explains this ethnographic approach:

One of the most common assumptions of inferential statistics is that the sample is random. Typically, ethnography uses stratified judgmental sampling rather than a truly randomized selection. The use of parametric statistics requires large samples. Most ethnographers work with small groups, however. The issues of expertise and appropriateness raise further difficulties. (Fetterman 1998:106)

Since we found our focus group participants using a convenience sample and the snowball recruitment method (we asked providers and community managers to put us in touch with more providers), I must end the chapter by stressing the scope of the study again. As a company’s competitive asset, private data is not commonly shared in this budding sector. There was no publicly accessible data anchor, so I endeavored to substantiate a starting point through data collection. The study results reflect how providers navigate their work and how they experience company-provider dynamics. This recruitment approach attracts the most impassioned and reachable people. We do not know whether there are any significant correlations between providers’ income generation and participation level with the likelihood that they would hear of or volunteer for a group interview. The focus group research also took place in Silicon Valley, which has a prominent tech scene. This context plays out in factors such as access to numerous peer economy income options, professional networking potential, a deeper than average understanding of the venture capital model, and—since San Francisco is the birthplace and testing ground for many companies—the level of a platform’s community engagement. Ideally, several more focus groups would be conducted to form an even fuller perspective.

That said, the field research affirmed that providers are anxious about the legal ambiguity around their work, and some do not know how to manage the risk of being an independent. Money is the single-most important thread to provider longevity, but providers deeply enjoy being the source of a good customer service experience. Companies that cultivate community have a long-term competitive edge in retaining providers, and these communities eventually grow into their own and set up community hubs independent of the platform. However, the more assets (including time and presence) and skills (including effort) that are required for financial participation, the more expectations the provider has of the company.

When I first began my research, I was eager to dive into certain questions: What is an onboarding process for marginalized and underprivileged communities to take advantage of the peer economy? What particular support and resources do these communities need? Immediately, I ran into walls asking some of the questions I was most excited about. Before answering any of them, I had to sort between popular assertions as either speculation or substantiated studies. Finding very little to stand on, I took on qualitative fieldwork as an intervention. This chapter summarizes the findings of my intervention, and my hope is that it is a clear enough starting point for researchers to tackle more questions. That said, other questions I would have hoped to investigate include:

Do certain platform combinations lend themselves to a better patchwork income? If so, what is the combination of platform characteristics that make these combinations work well for providers?

• If quantitative data flowed more freely, where would we see seasonal fluctuations that could give providers a sense of rhythm?
• What is currently the proportion of full-income users, partial income users, and occasional income users?
• Do early adopters earn more money when the platform is young? If so, will peer economy providers have to hustle from platform to platform as early adopters to sustain a decent income?
• What is the conversion rate for those who sign up as users to become active providers? What is the latency period between being a consumer and becoming a provider?
• To date, what linear events have had an effect on the peaks and valleys in conversion (i.e.: dramatic changes to job rates, national events, natural disasters)?

“The idea that anyone can benefit is a common sentiment within the Sharing Economy,” write Dorian Commode and Jules Bentley about the peer economy’s presence in New Orleans. “But while the internet may have potential as a democratizing force, it has in common with democracy itself that it does not serve all its constituents equally” (Commode and Bentley 2014). Questions in this branch to investigate include:

• If there is a way to visualize a provider heat map across demographics and local geographies,

what are the opportunities to approach practicing providers from underprivileged communities to codesign an inclusive onboarding process?

• What would guarantee a baseline of economic security for people to feel confident about working

in the peer economy? Secondarily, do countries that invest more in universal social welfare turn out more confident peer economy providers?

• As the tide changes, how far outward is the peer economy’s legitimacy penetrating? For example,

would peer economy providers be fine with their children aspiring to be peer economy providers as part of their fluid work careers?

Qualitative fieldwork is a rewarding but drawn out process. Although I now hang up my hat as an MIT researcher, I hope other researchers will consider these additional questions and adopt some of them in their own studies.

CONCLUSION - Getting at a human-centered economy

...certain ideas burst upon the intellectual landscape with a tremendous force. They resolve so many fundamental problems at once that they seem also to promise that they will resolve all fundamental problems, clarify all obscure issues... The sudden vogue of such a grande idee, crowding out almost everything else for a while, is due, [Susanne Langer] says, “to the fact that all sensitive and active minds turn at once to exploiting it. We try it in every connection, for every purpose, experiment with possible stretches of its strict meaning, with generalizations and derivatives.”

After we have become familiar with the new idea, however, after it has become part of our general stock of theoretical concepts, our expectations are brought more into balance with its actual uses, and its excessive popularity is ended ...if it was, in truth, a seminal idea in the first place, [it becomes] a permanent and enduring part of our intellectual armory. But it no longer has the grandiose, all-promising scope, the infinite versatility of apparent application, it once had.

—Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (Geertz 1973:3-4)

Work is complicated. I was privy to the personal experiences of a journalist and an entrepreneur discussing their work with cities. “When you talk to city departments, do you get pushback?” the journalist asked. “Do you ever find that cities clam up when they think you’ll pitch something to streamline their work?”

“We’ve definitely come across that sort of resistance,” the entrepreneur replied. “Our product would make the work less painful and more reliable so that city employees can focus on other things. But behind closed doors, department heads have told us, ‘that’s great, but I’m not willing to do anything that will cut City jobs. These are people’s livelihoods.’ And that’s a legitimate concern. There’s agony in both direction; there’s agony that city employees are overworked, but there are also too many people for how much the City can pay. If the load looks lighter, their budget could get reallocated, and jobs would get cut.”

These groups are in a tough position. They both value people’s wholeness, which includes work, and they need the human capacity. However, department heads have learned from experience that those who control a tight budget read efficiency gains as reason enough to cut departmental spending. Jobs—and therefore effective people—are caught in the crossfire.

The gospel of efficiency has saturated business and operations for the last century. On the whole, streamlining processes did not cut the absolute number of gainful employment jobs; it just rebalanced them. However, technology is encroaching on the human domain of skills and processes, leading to a gospel of razor-sharp expertise: delegate the most burdensome tasks to automated processes and let people do the best, most enjoyable parts of their work. As technology improves over time, those skills will be harder for people to reach, and reaching them requires a ladder made up of acumen, tenacity, home life stability, education, access to resources, power, wealth, etc. In a world that requires such expertise, how many people will move ahead, how many will be pulled along, and how many will be left behind?

The peer economy is by no means a perfect model nor an equal opportunity work provider. But it represents another side of technology. In a sense, the Internet is just one small step in media history, but it is a giant step for facilitating human connectedness. Small kitchen businesses that produce artisan goods—jams, pickles, cheese—existed under the radar long before the peer economy. Their formal counterparts, farmers markets, are peer-to-peer marketplaces that predate megamarts. As acts of kinship and reciprocity, people hosted relatives, friends, and friends-of-friends for long-term stays. They knew that these social bonds might one day care for them.

Improvements to mass manufacturing infrastructure created impersonal but reliable systems, and traditions of kinship and homesteading became distant memories. While automated technology plays catch up to humans to perform repetitive tasks, the peer economy represents technology’s power to be a humanizing force. Although it is not legally categorized as such, the Internet is a basic utility. It has lowered the cost to cross-cultural, cross-economic, business-to-business communication. This overhead reduction—a barrier to entry in a traditional economy—generally means that people do not put as much on the line to experiment with financial endeavors. Peer economy platforms offer tools to transact seamlessly, and it has refreshed people’s perception of their assets. Instead of more things catching dust in the attic or ball-and-chains called houses and cars, they now see abundance. Individuals’ assets and skills are abundance that someone else needs, and lending them brings about greater abundance for providers. Peer economy platforms enable economic activities that were always just looking for a more visible outlet.

My curiosity about the peer economy began with how it looked as a whole; it seemed more societally accessible than the current job reward system, and that was a step in the right direction. There is a vanity in having conversations that are philosophically distant from possible next steps, so I started down this path wanting to turn out a working document. I hoped that my thesis would serve as groundwork to bigger questions and smarter action. As framing, I laid out five quandaries in the peer economy space. I fleshed them out across four chapters, proposing my own interventions along the way:

1. Can peer economy opportunities comprise a livable work lifestyle?
2. Who is accountable when something goes wrong?
3. Do legal classifications override social relationships?
4. Can providers cultivate a collective voice?
5. How do peer economy actors historically contextualize the model?

This thesis began with a visit to the early twentieth century, when industrialists began to see gainful employment as a prudent practice. The first chapter traces its workplace shifts from the factory floor to the office to companies that now offload risk to employees. Gainful employment is taken for granted as the outcome of adequate education, to the point where education reform policies invoke the term to regulate private colleges. It has been the crown jewel of policies, institutions, and individuals’ societal credibility (apartment applications, mortgages, car ownership all come easier for the gainfully employed). Globalization offshored jobs, and some scholars see technological displacement as a threat to conventional jobs. As gainful employment falls behind, many people will continue to be defined out of the workplace and with it, social welfare coverage. Symptoms include high college debt, the widening wealth 35 gap, and a high U6 unemployment rate . The most optimistic scholars think of this as a time for reskilling: delegate tedious tasks to machines and let humans spend time doing what humans do best. While no one would debate the versatility that comes with new skills, the focus on reskilling masks the underlying issue: Access to gainful employment is not keeping pace with expectation.

Having arrived at this starting line, I introduced the various actors—the ones who talk most about the peer economy: companies, providers, investors, strategists, cities and governmental regulators, labor advocates, critics, scholars, and media. Some of these actors question whether the peer economy model can be a sustainable work lifestyle. They challenge whether companies can truly be human-centered when their providers own none of the business. Both critics and supporters alike tackle questions around liability, technical support, and collective action. As a distributed network, there are promising signs that stakeholders will match providers’ needs to capacity within the sector. Known problems include the legalities of operating within the peer economy, tax literacy for a relatively new and independent workforce, and who holds insurance and liability if something goes wrong. We see a venture capital group funding an insurance company, and labor advocates contemplating how to give rise to a collective provider voice. In the same vein, I disambiguate rhetoric around the peer economy. Rhetoric has implications for three of the framing questions—can peer economy opportunities actually comprise a livable work lifestyle? Who is accountable when something goes wrong? Do legal classifications override social relationships?

• Positive rhetoric obfuscates whether providers can make a meaningful living if they subsist purely

off of the peer economy.

• Although providers are technically independent contractors, rhetoric suggests social

responsibilities between parties,

• and because the social responsibility is not clear, rhetoric also enables providers to depend too

much on companies. This puts providers in a vulnerable position and causes legal problems when trying to assign liability.

The sharing rhetoric leaves the peer economy open to criticisms about exploitative labor practices, especially because companies that embrace the term “sharing economy” are not necessarily committing to its underlying principles. These underlying principles stem from predecessors of the peer economy, and conversations in the space often reference unions and cooperatives. Instead of rehashing these arguments, I add three more antecedents: the domestic workers movement, legal classifications for American workers, and the franchising dilemma. Each of these holds lessons for peer economy advocates in rousing a collective provider voice. Both domestic workers and providers are atomized workforces, and neither group is protected under fair labor and safety acts. In the last 30 years, the domestic worker movement has gained momentum and pushed forward with concise demands in the political realm. Says Ai-Jen Poo, who heads up the National Domestic Workers Alliance:

We also learned that just about everyone is connected, in one way or another, to a domestic

worker. New York City Council members and New York State Assembly members reflected on

their mothers’ experiences as domestic workers. Other allies relayed that they had been raised by

a domestic worker or had done this work, and these personal connections became a key

mobilizing force of the campaign. Over time our consciousness also shifted. Although the bill is

called the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, we came to see that our collective humanity was at

stake. (Poo and Kim 2011:7)

The needs outlined in the domestic workers’ bill of rights and standard contract—such as days off, safety measures, and employer-worker dynamics—are human and technical needs that providers have in common. While providers may not be able to expect this of their consumers or even the platforms, these needs are key to a livable life, and advocates who hope to support this workforce must acknowledge them. In the same chapter, I dove into misclassification in order to criticize the bifurcation of workers into one of two legal classifications: employees or independent contractors. Independent contractors are equivocated with self-employed, small businesses owners, and microentrepreneurs. There are other terms, too: contingent worker, permalancer, temp and on-call worker. Peer economy providers are technically independent contractors. Rather than shoehorning non-employee workers into an independent contractor status, classifications should be modified to reflect working realities—that not everyone who is an independent contractor thinks of or approaches work like an entrepreneur (nor should they have to). These modifications would have greater impact than just peer economy providers; they could bolster programs designed around self-employment as an exit strategy for communities of concern (i.e.: the homeless, those at risk of human trafficking, and the formerly incarcerated). They could set the scene for more appropriate resource planning to help independent contractors. Finally, in conversations about franchisors and franchisees, the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing is a recurring theme, and the legal term is equally useful in articulating companies’ and providers’ accountability to each other. By understanding both legal worker classification and franchising dilemma, peer economy providers have an initial framework and language to sort out whether legal classification trumps social understandings.

After contextualizing the peer economy in history and extracting tactics for peer economy advocates, I summarized general findings from my qualitative field research. I conducted individual and group interviews, and I approached the work as a foundation on which to ground future research questions. The insights from the research revealed how providers think of themselves and consumers, how they approach their work, and how they think about their relationship with companies. It is by no means an exhaustive portrait but rather an anchor point. The insights spawned recommendations around workforce development training that is useful in both the peer economy and other self-starting employment. Firm grasp on financial literacy and return on investment will help self-starters maximize their assets, which come in the form of equipment, time, and effort. The final two recommendations are based on community dynamics. As companies grow, they must communicate to providers that they are also benefitting. This is called co-wealth generation, and co-wealth needs to have a tangible, material benefit. Companies should also cultivate a provider-consumer community, as peer-to-peer marketplaces intentionally have a human face to them.

A software engineer and a journalist are competitively productive. A journalist, a teacher, and a sales associate are also competitively productive. Each one has work to fill their time, but a pecking order has formed along valuation. Jobs exist because productivity is what makes things happen, but people are awarded adequate income based on how much market value they produce, not how productive they are. In such a world, the only way to get ahead is not to be at the bottom, but someone will always be at the bottom.

Stability is no longer engendered by a full-time job. Moving away from this century-long paradigm is frightening, and media coverage reflects the scramble to locate the next incarnation of stability. In the mêlée, measures have taken on a distorted influence. Scholar Juliet Schor, who advocates the 21-hour workweek, might say that the 40-hour workweek is a distorted way to ensure productivity (Schor 2012). Systems are created to execute a vision. They are formulated to reach an intended result, but by oversimplifying measures, the original intent of the system becomes distorted. The power of distorted measures is that instead of aiming for the original intent, people aim for the standard. I see this in the way that gainful employment is valued for its defined benefits. We have distorted wellbeing with defined benefits. While these two are intimately connected, wellbeing is not only defined by benefits and whether we have them. The 1990s trope of corporate drones and soul-sucking jobs reflected that there was more to wellbeing than just job security. A common distorted measure today is to assess national job security by the unemployment rate. By itself, unemployment decreases would be a misleading indicator. Janet Yellen, vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board, also considers other indicators to gauge economic health. Says Yellen, “a pickup in the quit rate, which also remains at a low level, would signal that workers perceive that their chances to be rehired are good—in other words, that labor demand has strengthened” (Yellen 2013). Americans are staying put because they fear that they will not find work with equivalent pay and benefits; that these Americans are employed does not mean the job market is getting better.

Before we say goodbye, I want to bottle up for you just why I found the peer economy so fascinating. Two years ago, my imagination ran wild with the possibilities for meaningful independence. I grew up in Silicon Valley, where there is a strong emphasis on the quality of career. I was one of its believers, and as I moved from region to region to chase that career, the price for the sort of career I wanted often came at the expense of quality of life. In Portland and in Grand Rapids, I met people who valued their quality of life, and this manifested in the form of arts, volunteering, family time, neighborhood involvement, and community building. They knew what made them feel good, but without gainful employment as a joist, their ecosystem was fragile. They knew that, too. The key to this, people would say, was to figure out what you love and get paid to do it. Meanwhile, I met forces of nature who did what they love, and I watched passionate staffers spend more hours at work than they were paid to be. Like the average American, the people I met were saddled with debt, and those whose love found a job outlet were the easiest to exploit; they were basically paying to work. This is to say nothing of all the people who hardscrabble to make ends meet, who only hope to work hard and go home with a semblance of security.

Gainful employment is not the linchpin to success, and the peer economy might not be the answer, either. Technology plays a role in today’s circumstances, and American society has reached a sufficiently critical turning point: Technological improvements are streamlining operations, cutting out inefficiencies, and displacing workers. Inversely, if advances in technology means that efficiency is at a peak, can we now put people at the center of our calculations? To revisit Gerald Davis’ quip from chapter one:

The ancient Greeks would have seen the current moment as a turning point in human history,

where only a tiny fraction of the population's hours are needed to produce all of the food, clothing,

shelter and material goods people need to live comfortably. Surely we were on the verge of a

society devoted to a life of art, literature, and contemplation. (Davis 2009:249)

Near the beginning of my thesis planning, one of my thesis advisors and I were discussing the role that technology would play in this document. Good with analogies, César Hidalgo described technological impact through the analogy of toilet paper. It is nice that innovation in manufacturing technology made it possible to produce two-ply toilet paper instead of one, but it is not a technology that changed the world. “Technologies that change society are technologies that change interactions between people,” he said.

In step with the rest of media history, the affordances of the Internet have connected humans at a level that we had not imagined. Technological changes are coming quickly, and with it, the opportunity to place humans at the center of rising work models. Now is an opportunity to try to do it better, and old and new models alike are rising to the mainstream surface, trying to do just that.

Source - (http://hellodenise.com/mit-thesis.pdf)