I don't think the GP does deserve a good rebuttal tbh, it's a pretty weak argument that I have a hard time believing someone could really think. The argument is, because these people "willingly" took the job, they cannot be being taken advantage of? I don't understand why people think "free will" means you cannot be taken advantage of. People can have both free will, and real economic / physical / legal constraints in my life that people could take advantage of if they are in a position to do so. It happens every single day all over the world.

I'll take a stab at a strong argument for gig workers being taken advantage of. I don't think it describes _every single_ gig worker, but I'm sure there are some for whom it's true.

There are individuals in precarious economic positions. They need income to survive, they are living one week to the next (meaning they pay rent weekly, and have no excess money at the end of the week). They need to provide for their families, maybe send money home to their families in another country because they are immigrants. Stuff like that. You can talk to them yourself, ride a cab in New York and ask the driver about his life, these stories are pretty common.

Let's say they have limited skills. But they have a body. They can move around, drive a car, or maybe just ride an e-Bike. They could maybe drive a cab, but driving a cab costs you a a flat fee per month to rent the medallion, no matter what you make. I believe you need some upfront capital to get started. So they sign up for Uber Eats / DoorDash / Grubhub / pick your delivery app.

The pay on DoorDash is very low, because consumers won't pay that much for food delivery. Out of that, the restaurant has to get paid, DoorDash has to get paid, and the gig worker has to get paid. Who has the least amount of bargaining power in this situation? The restaurant has other sources of income, so they can leave if they aren't happy with the cut. The platform obviously sets the terms, and there's a lot of people in precarious economic positions who need money. So the gig worker has the least amount of bargaining power. So he gets a pretty low pay. He lives in a one-room apartment with like, 8 other gig workers who all do delivery for Doordash, Grubhub, Uber Eats etc. (I'm not making this up, it's pretty common) and works 7 days a week. No time for learning some new skill, and since the wages are subsistence level, no ability to save and eventually move on to better work.

So essentially, they need money to survive, the money they get from delivery apps gives them that, but no more. They would certainly prefer to do something else, but have no other skills. So these apps run on the labor of people in precarious economic positions with no better options. Of course he has "free will", but I'm curios what economic alternatives you think are on offer that make that free will a meaningful, and not simply philosophical, concept.

Perhaps the phrase "taken advantage of" triggers some people. But it doesn't seem that controversial to me. The business works because there are people who need to work a job for very low pay. I don't think they love riding around picking up bags of food for $3-$5 each.

Here's a thread on the DoorDash Reddit, I found it by scrolling down the front page, it's not old.

https://www.reddit.com/r/doordash/comments/xeyvrg/the_soul_c...

Here's the top comment with 119 upvotes

> I couldn’t agree more. The only reason I’m doing doordash currently is out of desperation. Plus, it allows me some much needed flexibility which is crucial given some difficulties in my personal life.

I dunno what you consider that. But it's not like, an arrangement in which the worker seems to opting into this because they think it's a good deal out of their plethora of options. They do it because they are, in their words, desperate.

Edit: I'm not saying gig companies are evil or something, or even predatory. It's unclear to me if they have sound unit economics, but that doesn't make them evil. The business just doesn't work without low delivery wages.