Fiverr, an online freelance marketplace that promotes itself as being for “the lean entrepreneur,” recently attracted ire for an ad campaign called “In Doers We Trust.” COURTESY FIVERR

We know from experience in the realm of sustainability, which has had its soup du jour moments in the last two decades, that whether you are leading or following, a fad or a trend can be a slippery slope. It can lead to innocuous inattention to unintended consequences, or worse. Various new forms of technology, which we tend to celebrate in recent years for their disruptive service to the economy and society through innovation and blah blah blah…Don’t just do it. That might be the counter-message as we explore the gig economy’s downside, as this post by Jia Tolentino points out:

Last September, a very twenty-first-century type of story appeared on the company blog of the ride-sharing app Lyft. “Long-time Lyft driver and mentor, Mary, was nine months pregnant when she picked up a passenger the night of July 21st,” the post began. “About a week away from her due date, Mary decided to drive for a few hours after a day of mentoring.” You can guess what happened next. Continue reading →