The advantages borne of technology and the necessity borne of recession have brought a number of changes to our economy, and there’s been no shortage of attempts to apply a name to the results. It’s been called the sharing economy, the gig economy, the instant gratification economy — but whatever handle you apply, what we’re talking about is a system that (often digitally) connects people who need cash to other people who need something, be it an apartment for the weekend, a ride to the store, their oven cleaned, or their groceries picked up. What gets lost in many of these attempts at cute nomenclature, however, is that this new and growing part of the economy is succeeding because, as Kevin Roose points out in New York, so many people are struggling.
via America’s social safety net is failing workers in the ‘gig economy’ – The Week.