By Tes Welborn, HANC Board
Presentation by Christin Evans and Bruce Wolfe.
First in a series of meetings
The “Sharing” Economy is a way to buy a customer base for stock market valuation and an IPO, whether the business model makes financial sense or not. Venture capitalists now dominate the financing of new businesses, and they want the new IPO to be sold ASAP and get their funding repaid, plus. Internet businesses such as Facebook and Google are exploitative. They sell our data to marketers, a monetization of our personal information.
These businesses contribute little to the community, and are purely exploitative of people and resources. At the extreme, they want to privatize everything in the city. These companies flaunt local law and taxes. With their untaxed income, they “pay to play,” and corrupt our political process.
These companies increase income inequality by creating very few jobs and holding most “workers” as self-employed, self-insured, with no sick leave, etc. Business risks are put on their non-employees, and they mislead their workforce about the real income that can be earned. For example, Uber was quoted in San Francisco magazine as saying the average [?] driver earns about $74,000 a year. But, this is gross pay, BEFORE the cost of providing a late model vehicle, vehicle insurance, gas, maintenance, and taxes, and there is no provision for the benefits employees get-- limited working hours, a place to work, IRA, vacation pay, even unemployment insurance, etc. And there is no discussion of the impacts that thousands of Uber drivers have on traffic. Uber has been banned from many countries and some U.S. Cities.
The Haight-Ashbury in the 1960's and 1970's was a source of communal sharing and connection. These values are now being used to cover the fortune-building by a few. What these investors call “sharing” are businesses designed to make money for the few off of the many.
Illegality is embedded in all of these businesses. They consciously disregard current laws, consumer protection, health regulations, labor laws, and exploit their “non”employees. At the same time, they are destroying “brick and mortar” businesses that have a physical site, pay taxes, have employees, and contribute to the local community. (One example: Early on, Amazon displaced bookstores, and now increasingly competes with food markets and stores selling all kinds of goods, even threatening internet giant Ebay.)
Part of how the “Sharing” Economy works is that many people do make some money by renting a room, clothing, a parking space, etc. But these benefits actually accure to only a few people, while externalizing the costs onto the public and privatizing the commons. When MUNI buses can't get to a bus stop because a tech bus is parked there, we all lose. When all of San Francisco becomes a hotel district, giving owners incentives to evict or not rent, we lose affordable housing and neighborhood character. We all lose.
About 2/3 of Airbnb San Francisco listings are for entire apartments – no one lives there. Thirty percent are posted by owners of multiple units. All of this was illegal, and is still illegal under current San Francisco law. Where are the enforcers??
San Francisco politicians have bought the notion that the Market will solve all problems, so they must facilitate the market. This is despite widespread evidence that the Market enriches the few and provides few of the goods and services (such as affordable housing) that most people want. We see tax breaks for rich companies while local businesses and nonprofits struggle. And corruption follows the money.