‘On-demand’ services might have made people feel wealthy, but now the model is in jeopardy as investors begin to get nervous about piling money into loss-making companies.
First there were Uber drivers who would come to your door at the push of a button. Now there are people who will bring you a packet of biscuits and some ibuprofen.
Gig companies have sometimes played explicitly on this theme. One of Uber’s early slogans was “everyone’s private driver”. Getir, one of the ultrafast delivery apps, says it is “democratising the right to laziness”.For some critics, the growth of this new “servant economy” is a symptom of resurgent economic inequality and an underclass without better options.
But making money is likely to mean paying workers less or charging customers more. This is a bad time to try either. Unemployment is low and job vacancies are high in many countries from the US and Britain to Europe and Australia.makes driving around all day particularly expensive. There are already signs that people are cutting back on discretionary spending – and nothing is more discretionary than paying someone to bring a packet of biscuits to your house.
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