just listened to this tech won't save us episode about the eu's platform work directive, about which i know nothing except what was discussed in the episode so keep that in mind
but ben wray points out that spain has a publicly owned transport app that cab companies all use, rather than each having to make their own. he further argues that gig workers of all shades aught to see themselves as DATA workers since that is the primary value they produce for their corporation
https://techwontsave.us/episode/157_what_new_eu_rules_might_mean_for_gig_workers_w_ben_wray
how do you unionize youtube? i've been puzzling over this question for years and i'm not alone. a while back there was an attempt to make a youtuber's union through a german union, but nothing came of that. you can't traditionally unionize youtubers & most gig workers by design because they're necessarily decentralized. no hub, no boss, no contact with other workers, no effective means to coordinate withholding labor.
which suggests to me that we're looking at the problem all wrong.
the hypothetical promise of youtube is the democratization of media production and distribution. old media is difficult to break into, especially in industries historically rooted in one city or region. with youtube, anyone can post anything and it has a chance of finding an audience. it's the same promise blogging had, but scaled up to meet the significant technological demands of an audiovisual medium
but of course, we know how that promise breaks down when it collides with the profit motive!
wray points out that most gig econ labor movements focus on employment status. which makes sense! most essential resources under our capitalist society are tied to employment status.
but youtube, uber, fiverr etc as they exist have little or no barriers to entry. no application process, no interviews. this is because the labor of independent contractors is deemed so minimal as to be essentially valueless. which is exactly what they'd say if a govt insisted gig workers are by rights employees
see the paradox? uber can afford to lose more money than competitors precisely because it runs an essential service as cheaply and exploitatively as possible. its market value is tied to the excess profits stolen by its upper management
that value is fundamentally created by the workforce, but if that workforce were legally recognized AS a workforce then the firm's market value would plummet precisely because its excess profits would go down
this is why labor decentralization and platform obfuscation are so important to gig platforms. the less control and transparency they cede to the public, the more uncontestable control they have over their workforce. wray cites above uber's policy of instantly banning drivers from the service if they are caught using the *customer* facing version of the app at the same time, because they don't want drivers knowing the disparity between what's being charged vs what's being paid
the problem with focusing on employment status wrt gig platforms is precisely in how the platform relates to traditional models of employment; that is, a model based on selectivity and exclusion. to be hired, there must be a pool of laborers who cannot be hired.
the only condition of the gig model, by contrast, is participation. in such a model, there can be no reserve army of labor because there are no barriers to employment. which is where uber's price-scaling and youtube's algorithm come in
to justify only giving a minute sliver of excess profits to creators on the platform, the company must artificially produce conditions of scarcity. so yes, anyone *can* make a youtube account, but everyone knows actually making money off it is much more complicated.
the algorithm puts unspoken selective pressures on the creator pool to produce a variety of content deemed most immediately profitable, thus devaluing alternatives. it makes the whole thing feel desperate unless you play nice
what these corps are desperate to obfuscate, and what govt regulators may be sitting on their hands in fear of, is the inherent collective labor rights implied by the platform
tech companies insist a gig worker's labor is so low-value a traditional employer would never touch it. yet our work creates IMMENSE value for these corps! this isn't solely an indictment of the tech companies or their platforms, but of our society's entire conception of employment and labor mobilization
if all it takes to mobilize the labor of countless people who otherwise had no job opportunities outside the very limited and universally dehumanizing ""entry level"" positions available under current capitalism is an *app,* why are we setting our sights so low as employment status?
wray in the above talks about spain's ban on private gig platforms and the publicly-owned govt-funded transport app that all taxi/transit companies have to use. this, to me, is a REVELATION in bright neon lights
you can't unionize youtube because there is no specific class of people or regional workforce captured by it; it's universal. a push for traditional employment status would, i think by necessity, force these companies to make access far more exclusive, which defeats the whole promise of the platform.
so let's stop looking at it like this is a factory in the 30s. what we're agitating for is a fulfilled promise. the corp will never give us that, so our governments must create it
@sarahzedig one idea I'll push back on slightly; the corporatisation of the internet has popularised the idea that you need a centralised service for everything, but the medium we're using now is a good example of the fact you don't! I agree that we likely need state involvement to break up these services, but if open protocols were designed and standardised (cough, activity pub, cough) then workers could run services that speak the sane language and have access to the exact same customer base 😄
Basically I don't like the idea of giving all that power to the state either 😅
@sarahzedig (we talk about these sort of problems a lot at @locus BTW, if it's of interest.)
It's really refreshing seeing a youtuber discussing the inherent problems with the platform - I know it's a bit like biting the hand that feeds. I think these issues are critically important but we're lacking in tech-literate coverage of the problem. Most of the people who are seem to be too breathlessly and uncritically eating up each new development.
There's also a chance you may find @aral's small web project quite interesting!
i don't know what a publicly-owned youtube looks like, how its revenue model works, who controls it, how it's regulated... but i do know that just a few scant decades ago, public broadcasting and local access tv inhabited a similar space and was considered a public good, until that space was sold off to and cannibalized by private companies.
youtube is a public good. it is an essential forum of human expression and education, a library that lets you self-publish. that's the promise to fight for