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Eudaimonia and Co
▻https://eand.co

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The Quiet Death of the Gig Economy – FutureSin – Medium
▻https://medium.com/futuresin/the-quiet-death-of-the-gig-economy-126f62014a4d

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Michael K. SpencerFollow Jan 7

Disruption, blissfully happy digital nomads, the sharing economy and oh yes — the “Gig Economy” sounded good on paper, but it seems to not be all it was thought it might become.

As the U.S. economy finally and painfully slowly recovered from the great recession of 2008, the supposed unemployment rate fell to record low levels in 2018.

Alan Krueger (Princeton University) and Larry Katz (Harvard University) have dialed down their estimates of the gig economy’s growth by 60%-80%.

According to Guy Berger on LinkedIn, Krueger and Katz published the (at the time) most rigorous analysis of alternative work arrangements. Their conclusion was that such arrangements (of which a minority are online platform gig work) had grown significantly between 2005 and 2015. Their estimate was its share of the US workforce had grown by a whopping 5 percentage points. (7–8 million workers.). Well guess what, that trend now seems to have reversed as the economy recovered.

With Lyft and Uber set to go public with IPOs this year, that to be part-time drivers with them is somehow desirable or helpful to “make ends meet” has all but dried up, right before supposed autonomous vehicles and self-driving cars start to hit the streets in various ways.

Indeed there does not seem to be much sharing and caring in the ruthless world of Uber, amid legal battles and drivers who make less than minimum wage and are like grunt contract workers of the worst kind, totally unprotected.

In a world where Amazon is miserably harsh to its bottom feeder workers, why the heck did we once think the ‘gig economy’ was some glorious alternative workforce? Why the ‘gig’ economy may not be the workforce of the future after all, with rising minimum wages and a small bump in wage growth in 2019. I personally think the American labor force is screwed with a skill-shortage coming the likes of which we’ve rarely seen, but that’s another story for another day.

From Uber to TaskRabbit to YourMechanic, so-called gig work — task-oriented work offered by online apps — has been promoted as providing the flexibility and independence that traditional jobs don’t offer. But in 2019, if anything they seem like scams for the destitute, desperate and debt-ridden. I feel a bit nervous about how manipulative an Uber driver can be just to earn an extra buck. Maybe it’s not a Gig economy but kind of like another form of slavery given a pretty name.

Horror stories of what it’s really like to do delivery work also give you a second guess that this Gig Economy isn’t just disruptive to make these companies rich, it’s a sham and harmful to these workers. I feel as if Silicon Valley has duped us, yet again.

Nobody could have thought or imagined that doing a small gig in exchange for an hourly payment could become someone’s full-time job. It’s a bit like career-death, you get used to the work-lifestyle perks of the so called flexibility until you realize just how little you made the year you side-hustled in the Gig Economy, or became a freelancer or attempted to be self-employed. It’s risky folks, and I don’t recommend it for a minute.

When you need to bring food to the table you are on the fringe of the labor force, the painful predicament of being a Gig Economy minion is your everyday, until it becomes your new normal. Until you lose hope to up-skill or change your career path. Labor is tiresome, but when the fat cats get rich on the backs of people who need the money, you know American capitalism has invented another scam to profit. That’s precisely why the Gig Economy has to die.

Crypto and the Gig Economy seem hot in a recession, but the reality is that lovely expansion of alternative work seems a nice response to the weak US labor market, when job seekers didn’t have many options. But now with the labor market in a much healthier state for a few more months, more conventional jobs have rebounded. The implication may be that we’ll see these kinds of jobs proliferate again during the next downturn. Bitcoin and side-hustles, it doesn’t feel very sustainable.

The “gig” economy was supposed to be an opportunity for entrepreneurs to be their own boss. But if you have to deal with companies like Uber, you might end up getting screwed royally. For the hundreds of people who use services like Uber, TaskRabbit or Turo to earn their livelihood, there’s no thing as benefits, paid leave or basic worker rights. That’s not an ethical solution for people living on the edge.

Companies like TaskRabbit make a fortune by extracting commission in exchange for connecting consumers across the country with reliable people in their neighborhood who will happily take care of their burdensome chores. But is it even ethical? The app-economy is a feudal use of technology and downright as evil as any capitalistic scheme you might want to devise to imprison people in impossible situations.

The Gig Economy was a myth and a scam, and Silicon Valley needs to be held more accountable with regulation. Alan Krueger of Princeton University and Larry Katz of Harvard should actually be apologizing, not revising their estimates. As of 2020, universal basic income sounds more reliable than an exploitative Gig Economy.

The gig economy was supposed to be the future of work, but it ended up hurting more than it helped, and we left it. Just as we should kill Uber.

#USA économie #droits_sociaux #platform_capitalism

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▻https://eand.co/half-of-americans-are-effectively-poor-now-what-the-c944c518db6a

via @julien1

There are days I feel like I read dystopian statistics for a living. And then there are day when the dystopian statistics take even my jaded breath away. Here’s one: 43% of American households can’t afford a budget that includes housing, food, childcare, healthcare, transportation, and a cellphone. Translation: nearly half of Americans can’t afford the basics of life anymore.

Déjà dans les années 80 quand je vivais aux États-Unis j’avais le sentiment d’un pays pauvre.

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Why Superfoods Are Superfluous — at Best – Heated
▻https://heated.medium.com/why-superfoods-are-superfluous-at-best-8c5f0483c9cf

Superfood claimants generally have two key characteristics: They are, for the most part, genuinely nutritious foods; and, they come from far away so that, ideally, you’ve not heard of them before: acai, or noni, or goji. As a result, whether or not they are hard to get, they are often a niche or new market, and so someone stands to make a lot of money off of them; they’re very profitable. Which, unless you’re the one selling them, should leave you cold.

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Mapmaking in the Age of Artificial Intelligence – descarteslabs-team
▻https://medium.com/descarteslabs-team/mapmaking-in-the-age-of-artificial-intelligence-da9e71be21d3

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#cartographie et #machine_learning

Meet Voatz, the #blockchain company tackling election fraud
▻https://hackernoon.com/meet-voatz-the-blockchain-company-tackling-election-fraud-1c95737138f5?s

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As the midterm elections have come and gone, voter fraud and suppression has continued to be an issue and hot topic item for Florida, Arizona, and Georgia. Claims and lawsuits are being dealt with in these crucial states as officials attempt to sort out the chaos. However, a preliminary test with mobile election system Voatz is trying to find a solution to these problems before they arise.Voatz is looking to introduce blockchain technology into the voting process. Common misconceptions tends to tie blockchain and cryptocurrency together into one entity. As blockchain is simply the technology that allows cryptocurrency to live, it has many other practical uses. However, cryptocurrency as been seeing trouble transitioning over into the mainstream lately, unable to work on essential, (...)

#politics #finance

Implement Infinite Scroll or Pagination in #ios #uitableview using #swift 5
▻https://hackernoon.com/implement-infinite-scroll-or-pagination-in-ios-uitableview-using-swift-5

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Infinite scroll is one of the basic requirements of the modern apps. It is a design pattern where content is continually loaded into the interface as the user scrolls downwards. Also called endless scroll, the point is that the user never reaches the end of the page. Instead they are presented with a perpetual content stream without having to click or spend cognitive load on paginated navigation.Sound familiar? It should do. Most people use infinite scroll on the daily in their social media browsing — think Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.Advantages of using Infinite ScrollInfinite scrolling definitely has its upsides; if it didn’t, big tech giants wouldn’t be using the pattern. For example:Users consume vastly more content on an infinite scroll page.Interaction costs are basically zero, and (...)

#podfile #infinite-scroll

Why I Hate The Idea Of The “Side Hustle”
▻https://hackernoon.com/why-i-hate-the-idea-of-the-side-hustle-347f6f0deb2e?source=rss----3a8144

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Originally Posted HereI hate the idea of the side hustle.Let me explain.Since I was 16 I had a knack for picking up 2–3 jobs at one time. Sometimes I did it on purpose, other times it honestly just happened.It started first when I was working as a cook in fine dining and one of the Chefs went to another restaurant and asked me to come along. Rather than quit my current gig, I decided to keep both jobs. Soon, that very same Chef asked me to deliver some micro greens (like micro beets, micro basil, etc) for 20 dollars an hour, which at the time (and even now) was amazing! So of course, I took him up on that offer as well. When I graduated from college I began working as a data engineer and this pattern continuedQuickly after entering the corporate world, I had a director who left come to me (...)

#leadership #business #startup #self-improvement #development

Delays in app delivery to #kubernetes
▻https://hackernoon.com/delays-in-app-delivery-to-kubernetes-5d0511094f38?source=rss----3a8144ea

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Delays in App Delivery to KubernetesDelivering enterprise applications to KubernetesEnterprises around the world are waking up to the #containers and Kubernetes trend. There are numerous benefits of delivering an application as container packages to Kubernetes but at the same time, the process of app containerization and the subsequent app deployment to Kubernetes can hit many roadblocks. Since the idea of using Kubernetes and containers for app delivery is fairly recent, the transition from traditional delivery systems to these modern delivery systems is a bumpy ride.Major roadblocks while achieving continuous deliveryTo modernize, breaking down large applications into smaller microservices is just a start. The main challenge is in continuously delivering these microservices as (...)

#continuous-delivery #devops #docker

Authentic #collaboration In Tech Starts with the Right People
▻https://hackernoon.com/authentic-collaboration-in-tech-starts-with-the-right-people-6c173514990

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By Samantha Radocchia, co-founder and CMO of ChronicledThe most difficult part of building a company is bringing people together as a team.Traditionally, creating a collaborative, supportive team is viewed as something that can’t be forced. It’s widely recognized as a process that takes time and effort from everyone involved.But, as startup culture has grown and the role of founders has become ever more glamorized, a new method of company creation has popped up-venture production studios. Essentially, these studios bring together “founders” to start a company for a specific purpose.Think of it as manufacturing a company.While it’s possible to find success through that system, it’s also a very inorganic and impersonal way to build a company-and isn’t very good at fostering authentic (...)

#life #authentic-collaboration #entrepreneurship #life-lessons

Towards More Programmable and Robust Security Tokens: Five Protocols that Should be Part of…
▻https://hackernoon.com/towards-more-programmable-and-robust-security-tokens-five-protocols-that

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Towards More Programmable and Robust Security Tokens— Five Protocols that Should be Part of Security Token PlatformsThe market for security token platforms seems to be getting crowder every weeks. In a market with only a handful of actively traded security tokens, we already have over 50 platforms that are promising to be the future of crypto-securities. On paper, most of those platforms look incredibly similar which contributes to the noise in the market. To differentiate signal from noise, security token platforms must evolve their technical capabilities in order to support more sophisticated offerings. And we don’t need to start from scratch; the #ethereum ecosystem offers a rich set of protocols that can easily improve the feature-set of the next generation security token platforms. (...)

#security-token #blockchain #cryptocurrency #invector-labs

Serving #react and Koa together
▻https://hackernoon.com/serving-react-and-koa-together-720ba6668298?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3--

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Reactjs and #koajs are two great frameworks of #javascript. I wonder how to serve React and Koa projects in the same server and same port! Finally, I’ve reached a solution and today I’ll discuss it.In this article, we’ll create an API using koa and a React project (frontend) which will consume the API. The idea is very simple, React will fetch some book names from the backend (koa) and render them.Backend (Koa) projectKoa uses async functions, this gives an advantage over callback functions. By default, Koa does not come with any middlewares. That makes Koa very minimal and elegant.At first, we need to install node (koa requires node v7.6.0 or higher). Then install koa using : npm i koaCreate a project directory named “book” and run npm init -y.As koa doesn’t come with any middlewares and we need (...)

#single-page-applications #nodejs

6 Steps to Prepare Your Mobile Site for Voice Search in 2019
▻https://hackernoon.com/6-steps-to-prepare-your-mobile-site-for-voice-search-in-2019-164fef42b72

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When Google first debuted voice search application for iPhone in 2008, the app was far from flawless. Over the years this app has become more precise and human-like. Statistics reveal that Google’s English identification precision rate is currently over ninety-five percent.People fancy an immediate answer when searching for something from the web. While typing a question in a search bar is fast, merely talking in your gadget and obtaining similar outcomes is even swifter. Typically, an individual can type around forty words per minute and talk approximately a hundred and fifty words per minute.To attempt a spoken search, you may trigger your smartphone’s assistant like Amazon Alexa, Google assistant or Siri. You’ll need to press on the mic icon on Google’s search bar right side, to the (...)

#seo #content #mobile-website #optimize #voice-search

How Machine Learning Can Revolutionize Subscription Billing
▻https://hackernoon.com/how-machine-learning-can-revolutionize-subscription-billing-178a301238f3

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A subscription business gives the predictability of a stable cash flow, which helps a company grow and make plans for the future. Some organizations base their entire business on subscriptions, for example, cable TV or SaaS providers, while others have this only as one of the product licensing options.Since this is a successful business model, managers are trying to identify new ways to prevent customer churn, decrease the cost of customer acquisition and find the best ways to structure prices and plans. Until now, marketing research was the primary tool to answer these questions, but machine learning (ML) is becoming more effective.How Does Machine Learning Work?Machine learning is all about making a system recognize patterns by using vast amounts of training data. Once the system (...)

#analytics #subscription-billing #machine-learning #startup #big-data

#blockchain Week NYC 2019 Guide[Upcoming Event Highlights]
▻https://hackernoon.com/blockchain-week-nyc-2019-guide-upcoming-event-highlights-96290e153ad3?so

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Blockchain Week NYC 2019 Guide [Upcoming Event Highlights]Welcome to the second NYC Blockchain Week! Last year we got tremendous positive feedback for compiling this guide, so here we are again helping you navigate 2019 NYC Blockchain Week.New York City Blockchain Week runs from May 10th to May 18th with hundreds of events drawing people from around the world to share in the exploration of new innovations. It is a rare opportunity to meet global blockchain leaders with dozens of events being held to this aim.With so many events happening at once, which ones are worth checking out? Where do you go? Who do you see? We’ve compiled the best events and sorted them by price.If you can’t swing 2k for the Consensus, there are many other great options. Or if you’re visiting for Consensus, but would (...)

#cryptocurrency #new-york #blockchain-week #blockchain-week-nyc

Could Telegram’s TON #blockchain Drive Mass #cryptocurrency Adoption?
▻https://hackernoon.com/could-telegrams-ton-blockchain-drive-mass-cryptocurrency-adoption-57ce6d

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Could Telegram’s TON Blockchain Drive Mass Cryptocurrency Adoption?When the launch of the Telegram Open Network (TON) initial coin offering (ICO) was announced back in December 2017, the blockchain industry sat up and took notice, in a big way. At the time, not only were Telegram among one of the first companies with an existing and successful non-blockchain product to suggest launching an ICO; but more importantly, Telegram were already well regarded in the crypto industry as being the go-to platform for ICO community building initiatives and messaging.Despite Telegram setting a hard cap for their raise of just $1.2 billion, it was quickly apparent that Telegram’s fundraising goal was setting the bar far too low for the growing messaging app which boasts a self-proclaimed 200 million (...)

#telegram-messenger

Trendsetting in 2019: How #crypto Traders Get an Edge
▻https://hackernoon.com/trendsetting-in-2019-how-crypto-traders-get-an-edge-dee49a5cf3ef?source=

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Bitcoin bubbles have a tendency to be so volatile and unpredictable, despite their historical occurrence, that they often leave traders traumatized and drained of confidence. After being raked through the coals by the latest ups and downs, those who witness #bitcoin at historical bottom-barrel prices may miss a years-in-the-making opportunity to buy in at the best possible moment. However, this dilemma is by design. Hesitance is bred on the tail-end of a bubble, when a logical market would otherwise look at the charts and be quite optimistic.Despite that there’s always a way to derive value from #cryptocurrency speculation, Bitcoin is now a mature and known entity, and navigating the markets is therefore not as straightforward as it was in 2011. Back then, no one knew if Bitcoin would (...)

#ethereum #blockchain

Secure Proof of Stake in #blockchain, Explained
▻https://hackernoon.com/secure-proof-of-stake-in-blockchain-explained-f7fbea5a787a?source=rss---

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Secure Proof of Stake in Blockchain: ExplainedProof of Stake consensus mechanism states that a person can either mine or validate block transactions in accordance with how many coins he or she possesses. Now, this implies that the more bitcoin or altcoins are owned by a miner, the more mining power he or she has.The first digital currency to adopt this method of Proof of Stake was Peercoin.Let’s discuss this in detailWhat Exactly is Proof of Stake?The Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm was first introduced back in 2011 on the Bitcointalk forum aimed to solve the issues of the most popular algorithm in use — Proof of Work.Where both the algorithms share the same goal of reaching consensus in the blockchain, the process to reach this goal in for both is all different.How Does This (...)

#ethereum #proof-of-stake #blockchain-technology

Tech-Enabled Transformation in the #insurance Industry
▻https://hackernoon.com/top-5-digital-transformation-trends-in-insurance-in-2019-cc718980b8d?sou

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Software is a crucial long-term investment for any company, but with rapidly changing insurance software, you, as a provider, might just not know how to keep up and keep your business in the loop.In this article, we’ve compiled the trends that are most likely to affect your enterprise — which ones will be beneficial, what to look out for, and what strategies will be most useful in a few years’ time.Changing Approach to InsuranceInsurance agency software allows agencies to effectively analyze and evaluate risks for businesses and individuals, often using data Clouds and Big Data analysis. It has become a popular tendency to use this feature to support risk management on a more individual level to improve health habits and behavior. This way, providers help customers to move from reacting to (...)

#insurtech #digital-transformation

28 Years Ago, Our Enslavement was Predicted — and We’re Still Not Listening
▻https://hackernoon.com/28-years-ago-it-was-predicted-and-we-are-not-listening-652c0be46df7?sour

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28 Years Ago, Our Enslavement was Predicted — and We’re Still Not Listening“An untold #future lies ahead, and for the first time, I face it with a sense of hope. For if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life; maybe we can too.” — Sarah ConnorI was a kid when I first heard this quote, and It was shocking how we could even think of machines having feelings. Even more, it was interesting the idea in that quote referring that human beings don’t appreciate life.At that moment I wasn’t a big fan of terminator and to be honest I’m still not the biggest follower, yet, that bit of the end of the movie was nailed into my memory even -especially these days- several years after.Some years after Terminator, the first movie of The Matrix was released and from the very first time, I was hooked (...)

#smartphone-addiction #machine-takeover #giveashit #technology