413 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined 3 Feb \ on: Future of work via Bitcoin ❓ bitcoin
The future of work and the future of work because of bitcoin are different questions. There are lots of changes coming with or without bitcoin, but I don't think those are the point of the post.
In my mind, the most relevant features of bitcoin for this topic are it's deflationary nature (long-term) and the trustlessness of the network.
We've talked about some of the possible changes due to monetary appreciation before.
- Wages are sticky (downward), which means workers really bristle at taking nominal pay cuts. I think that means more employment contracts will have smaller salaries with larger amounts of profit sharing. That both insulates employers and incentivizes employees to increase profitability.
- There are two dimensions of shrinkflation: qualitative and quantitative. Most people associate shrinkflation with physically smaller products. Less often do people think about how products substitute lower quality inputs as prices rise. It stands to reason that a deflationary money would reverse that process and we'd see product quality gradually improve. That means more jobs would be geared towards high quality products.
- Automation is often associated with rising labor costs, so one might expect this to also reverse, similar to the shrinkflation point above.
- Another consequence of inflation that we discuss pretty often is that it forces people to invest rather than save, just to preserve their purchasing power. That is an enormous subsidy to the finance industry. On bitcoin, far far more people would just save their appreciating money. That means all those finance jobs will disappear. What will those people do instead? I have no idea.
I mentioned the trustlessness of the bitcoin network, because there will presumably be fewer people working as financial intermediaries. What will they do instead? I have no idea.
I think that means more employment contracts will have smaller salaries with larger amounts of profit sharing. That both insulates employers and incentivizes employees to increase profitability.
That's a really interesting perspective. I had only presumed it would just lead to shorter contracts, not greater remuneration via profit sharing (and/or shared ownership). It could definitely be a way to retain your best workers. Especially if profit sharing bonuses were distributed regularly and had a great UX (like 'prisms').
In today's unicorn businesses it feels a bit unnatural to employ that model, though for smaller startups it could work well. I just wonder how people would react to such ownership options if Bitcoin dramatically demonetises the inflated stock market.
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lead to shorter contracts
Don't underestimate how much people value stable employment. I think permanent employment contracts will always be a thing.
I agree that we'll likely see more of the workforce in contractor type arrangements, rather than employee, but I don't attribute that to bitcoin. Maybe bitcoin pushes in that direction too, though.
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100%. We have gone from:
- Lifetime job
- 10 year career
- 2 year stints
- Gig economy & project work
It is certainly easier to extrapolate the same trend. But who is to say that Bitcoin won't actually reverse it and bring back longer-term work? Given that you may be working more and more with people that you connect deeper with. If you're being paid well also... people may not be motivated to and be constantly needing to switch roles to keep up with monetary debasement.
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Exactly. That labor trend might just be another fiat distortion.
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