“Wanna grab an Uber or just flop on the couch with Deliveroo?”

That question would have made no sense in 2010, yet here we are in the brave new world of the gig economy.

This week, The Shaker will be examining the place of app-based services that are designed to make our lives easier. We’ll examine the impact of services such as Netflix, HelloFresh and UberEats that give you little reason to leave the house. Hell, even some of the food delivery services are getting into the booze game, so your night out is pretty much complete without even needing to get out of your trackie-dacks.

 

 

But is this the tech utopia that we’ve been promised? 2017 is a time and place where people join a business via their smartphone and work as little or as much as they like. The upstarts and start-ups of Silicon Valley tell us that this is the most democratic definition of work that has ever existed, but as companies such as Airbnb become near monopolies, are we really left with a choice?

This dramatic shift has sent unions, governments and established business models scrambling to catch up. The turbulence is growing across an increasing number of industries and there is little sign of abatement. Even lawyers and accountants are looking nervously over their shoulders as dramatic growth of artificial intelligence and automation also threatens white collar workers.

 

 

It’s worth noting that this week also marks the tenth anniversary of the iPhone’s first release. This is the gadget that changed our world as we knew it; all the apps we use to power the gig economy are contained in that sliver of glass and aluminium in your pocket.

A lot has happened in the last decade. Let’s see what we can cram in over the next five days.

 

Nic Crowther