It’s also a defensive play. If Trump loses, companies like Uber will be facing a regulatory reckoning for things like unemployment insurance. (Some states are paying gig workers UI or pandemic relief)
> If Trump loses, companies like Uber will be facing a regulatory reckoning for things like unemployment insurance.
That's... wishful thinking. Such a reckoning will certainly not come under Trump, I agree; but it's not a given that it will happen under Biden. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that it will not, at least for the first 4 years.
Inform yourself before engaging in snark. It's not a democratic/republican issue. It's a current POTUS vs. responsible leader issue. The problem that we're facing are novel.
To my knowledge, the US has never used unemployment to provide benefits to non-employees. UI is an insurance based program and always has been -- the business model is to loan money to the state programs during an uptick, which then gets recovered through UI premiums.
Chances are, changes are coming that will erode the free ride that "employers" of Uber have been enjoying. The states are broke and facing big increases of UI premiums. Once the door opens, it's hard to close. People will start looking at things and asking awkward questions about things like Medicaid and SNAP expenses associated with gig workers, etc.
This is commonly done by huge telecoms/ISPs (Comcast, Charter, Centurylink sized) against competition in specific geographic areas. And at the federal/FCC level.
It is among the many issues that are the contributing causes of why residential broadband sucks in many parts of the USA, and why consumers are dissatisfied.
So what's the solution to a regulatory moat? Would gov't regulations made to be only applicable to big businesses, and give smaller businesses a pass so they can compete?
Generally, you make the rules as simple as possible instead of a complex ouroboros of legislation that requires a full team of lawyers to understand. The other rule would tend towards “no need for government approval.” You shouldn’t have to ask the gov for permission to start working in the space, you should just have rules you need to follow while you do. Approval processes that inevitably take years are by far the most dangerous regulatory moat, if a startup can’t enter the space and start making money quickly that startup is many times less likely to exist.
The moat is still gonna be there. Austin TX went through this when they banned lyft and uber and had some "in house" startups launch rideshare apps. They didn't fare that well after uber/lyft came back in.
You can make it difficult for everyone at the "national" level of operation, but then how does a smaller company ever get there from a "local" start?
What even constitutes a "small business" when it comes to gig economy? Most of the workers don't even count as employees.
There's going to have to be a -lot- of legal changes to constitute something worth while. And legal stuff moves slow on purpose (so that it doesn't bork things before they're understood... and also, it's just slow).
Don't let lobbyists for these companies craft their own regulations, and actually listen to academics without a conflict of interest from our world class, publicly funded schools of economics for once.
