How Uber and Airbnb Created a Parasite Economy

An examination of more than a dozen companies reveals the nuances between gig platforms and their workers

Uber and Lyft drivers demonstrate outside the Beverly Hills home of Uber co-founder Garrett Camp to protest the first day of an “IPO cash out” and discriminatory wages on November 6, 2019. Photo: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

Uber and Lyft’s high-profile battle with California over its AB5 law, which requires them to classify their drivers as employees, has driven the debate over gig workers and their platforms to a fever pitch. Marker sought out the perspective of Juliet B. Schor, a professor of sociology at Boston College and author of After the Gig: How the Sharing Economy Got Hijacked and How to Win It Back, to shine some light on how these companies really treat their workers, and how these platforms might be fixed.

Schor and her team collected data on 13 different gig work platforms including Airbnb, TaskRabbit, Postmates, Uber, and Lyft over seven years, and interviewed 278 different gig workers about their experiences working on these platforms in the process of writing the book. We spoke with Schor to discuss whether these platforms expand opportunities for workers or exploit them, and if the gig economy can disrupt the discriminatory barriers of the traditional employment economy.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Marker: What do you find most accounts of the gig economy or the platform-sharing economy…