Month: September 2019

The Uber game

Things under the ‘gig economy’ (or within platform capitalism) change very rapidly, and I do not know to what extent the parameters of the game created by the Financial Times about Uber are still sound. I guess that by and large conditions of gig workers have not improved, although everywhere in US and EU, single States are trying to better regulate, in a way or another (e.g. California passes Ab5 act; ruling of Employment Appeal Tribunal in UK), platform’s management of their workers and the rights/conditions they provide them with.

It is interesting enough, though, to try out and experience a typical working week of an Uber driver.

Can you make it in the Gig Economy?

…I cannot.

Commons and P2P – A structured bibliography

Peer-to-Peer Foundation (Ira Mollay and Michel Bauwens, in particular) has finalized a structured bibliography focusing on Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and the Commons.

A very valuable and interesting resource for anyone interested and/or working on commons. It includes nearly 500 items (peer-reviewed articles) clustered along 6 chapters.

Structured Bibliography on P2P and the Commons.

Switching social

Often we complain about Facebook, Google, YouTube and other platforms, and even more often people believe that everybody keeps using them, because there are no valid alternatives.

That is not true, and here at Switching Social they have collected a thorough list of alternatives to the most used and renowned social media/platforms. As clarified in their FAQ: these alternatives, while not perfect, have a much better configuration or design with regards to users’ privacy and the underlying ‘business models’ (steering clear from typical venture capitalist ones).

The list also exist in French, Italian, German, and Turkish.