Silicon Valley's gig economy is not the future of work – it's driving down wages | Sarah Jaffe | Comment is free | theguardian.com

This "revolutionary" work built out of Silicon Valley convenience is not really about technological innovation – it's just the next step in a decades-old trend of fragmenting jobs, isolating workers and driving down wages.

And, as Paul Mason noted the other day on these pages, there's a whiff of the "shape-up" in these gigs – that is, when workers lined up on the docks to be chosen for a day's work ... or not. They pit tasker against tasker for the prize of some work, giving already-atomized workers an added incentive not to share information about employers, wages and fees. As Mercedes told me: