Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

"The gig economy is empowerment. This new business paradigm empowers individuals to better shape their own destiny and leverage their existing assets to their benefit."
— John McAfee

Did you know that over $1.4 trillion of economic activity in the United States arises from people in the freelance "gig" economy? It's true!

Here are a few other interesting facts:

● About 40% of America's workforce is expected to be freelancers by 2020
● People get 13% greater productivity and much greater convenience working from home
● Freelance coders earn up to $1,000 an hour in the gig economy

Those are very empowering facts.

So, maybe you want to get involved in the gig economy. You want to work for companies and individuals that have work for you to do: coding, writing, editing, reviewing, testing, building, translating, porting, designing, working. Anything you can do as an employee you can also do as a gig.

Who is big in gig? Three big names are Fiverr, Freelancer, and Upwork. A small newcomer to consider is Krios.

Problems

Being in the gig economy is not without its difficulties. Freelancer, for example, seems to require that people seeking gig work register with and pay monthly fees to Freelancer, otherwise their prospects for work are limited. Without paying monthly fees, it seems freelancers are unable to place more than a limited number of bids on projects. Freelancer's customer service has had a reputation for being slow to offer assistance, and numerous users have complained of lengthy payment delays as their accounts undergo "investigation." (Early business users of PayPal may find this familiar.)

Opportunities

There are lots of freelance gig economy platforms, including the ones I've mentioned here. Freelancer, Fiverr, and UpWork seem to get the most attention and user reviews. The experiences are different for everyone, and for the most part, seem favourable to all the major platforms.

Basically, the opportunity of the gig economy is to offer your services anywhere in the world for whatever price you are willing to negotiate. You don't have to be limited to people you know, or people who hear of you.

Reviews

One of the useful aspects of these platforms from a company using freelancers to get work done is the ability to review the past performance of gig economy workers. You can also add your own comments on how someone performed for your business. These reviews are an important part of the contemporary world, where Google Maps has thousands of reviewers offering feedback on local businesses, Yelp is frequently referenced for restaurant reviews, and people are generally willing to speak up if they have a good or bad experience. Indeed, some people seem to be willing to make things up when they have a desire to say mean things about a business.

The Krios Story

Krios was founded by Dwight Ringdahl and came to my attention through my friend Carl Mullan. Dwight is a veteran, studied at the community college of the Air Force (1984-89), founded and was CEO of Quantum AdTech in 2016, and is CEO of Krios. Dwight is joined by chief operating officer Joseph Orlando.

Mr. Orlando has a background in marketing with IBM and Motorola, worked for Price Waterhouse Coopers, is chief marketing officer for TorchLite Group, and also chief operating officer of The Digital Track. He has a bachelor's degree in marketing from Stetson University (1979).

I found their white paper to be a useful overview of their project and their ERC20 blockchain token.

It seems like a great opportunity to apply "smart" contracts built into the Ethereum token system to automate payments so that gig economy professionals are guaranteed payment when they meet performance milestones.

As in all things, your mileage may vary.

 

Jim Davidson is a co-founder of KanehCN3.com and Houston Space Society. He is an entrepreneur, author, actor, dancer, and gig economy worker. You can find him online.