As I recall, the basic differences between employee and contractor are whether the employer can dictate time, place, and manner. The problem for gig “contractors” is that they’re in a much tougher spot on exercising their rights, since not many people who can afford a lawyer deliver food. And they aren’t exactly in short supply, so if Uber oversteps and individual “contractors” try to push back, they’ll just be fired. Which gets back to the lawyer issue.

It’s worth paying attention to what the UMKC people say, they’re about the only economists who are actually connected to the real world.

To me, there’s a very striking difference between say The Next Generation and Discovery, namely, how they handle exposition.

The senior staff of the Enterprise-D gathers in the conference room off the bridge, one character presents new information, then the department heads give their take on what they just learned. Maybe Crusher will point out the humanitarian angle, Worf will provide savage pragmatism, Troi will ask if the space dust is sentient, and Picard will synthesize all that into his decision. But the other purpose of these scenes is to bake exposition into natural character dialog.

On the Discovery, three characters stand in front of a console taking turns giving a single thread raw exposition, then comment on how cool science is.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I think Discovery is unwatchable trash.

There are tons of things to dislike about Star Trek, just as there are tons of things to love about it. I’m curious, though, what don’t you like?