This is part of a wider battle over the “gig economy,” in which companies like Uber and its many imitators serve to coordinate the contact between independent contractors and customers, disavowing the role of “employers” and all of the regulations it entails. But traditional politicians—most notably that old reactionary, Hillary Clinton—accuse these companies of evading “worker protections,” by which they mean a vast network of labor regulations. Of course, that’s the whole point, and it’s the main reason for the success of these services: their ability to perform an end run around extra costs and bureaucracy.
In short, the new economy is crashing up against some old politics.
