Gig platforms will collapse or become luxury services when venture funding dries up
Evidence
With a sudden drop in venture capital funding, businesses are being forced to become profitable faster. For many low margin services, there are two options: either go out of business or cut costs and increase prices. What is likely to happen is for a large number of these services to go out of business in the next couple of years, while others will move towards becoming luxury services, providing on-demand convenience at high prices. Whereas the tech boom of the 1990s at least left us with the basis for the internet, the tech boom of the 2010s looks as though it will simply leave us with premium services for the rich. — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 96
Categorization
- QUESTION: Testable prediction made in 2016 — how well has it held? Many did collapse; ‘premium for rich’ partly fits. Worth checking against later outcomes.
- XREF: connects to: Lean platforms are unprofitable ventures sustained mainly by venture capital welfare — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 75; Impatient venture money produces many startup failures and few big wins — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 228; Finance funds commodification experiments where only a few ventures succeed — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 457 (+3 more)
Related
- Lean platforms are unprofitable ventures sustained mainly by venture capital welfare (similarity 0.84)
Broader Connections
- Finance funds commodification experiments where only a few ventures succeed
#corroborates(0.80) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 457 - Impatient venture money produces many startup failures and few big wins
#corroborates(0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 228 - Even pandemic-losing platforms invested central bank money in cloud capital
#qualifies(0.75) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 377