The gig economy is not a new form of freedom but a reclassification of employment designed to transfer the costs and risks of labor from the enterprise to the worker. The flexibility is real but asymmetric: the platform sets the terms, the algorithm manages the supply, and the worker absorbs the variability. Examining the structure honestly requires looking past the marketing language of 'independence' to ask who bears the downside when demand falls.
Each step builds on the last.