In the summer of 1915, the First World War was at its peak. The British and Germans were locked in a long, bloody conflict that would eventually claim millions of lives on both sides. Understandably, both nations were doing everything possible to weaken the other through military, economic, geopolitical, and any other strategic means.
But Britain suddenly faced a severe crisis: they were short of glass. Without it, they couldn't produce the binoculars, telescopes, periscopes, and other equipment critical for warfare. It also wasn’t a problem that had any easy solutions.
They depended on their nemesis, Germany, for 60% of their precision glass. When the war broke out, all that supply stopped.
Only 10% of their glass requirements were produced domestically. The other 30% came from France, but war meant even their exports were suppressed.
The British Army made a desperate appeal to the citizens to donate any binoculars or telescopes lying around in their homes so they could muster whatever little they could. About 2,000 of these were collected, but they were still woefully short of the dozens of thousands that were actually needed.
It was concluded that the only way to procure binoculars was to somehow get them in bulk from their enemy itself. A secret agent was sent to Switzerland, a neutral territory, on an extraordinary mission to find a way and source these instruments from Germany.
The result was as anticlimactic as you could imagine. In what was a bizarrely quick turnaround, Germany said yes. Not much convincing was needed. They agreed to send 32,000 binoculars immediately, and 15,000 a month later. On top of this, 5,000 to 10,000 telescopic rifle sights a month also made it to the deal. All of this so the British could kill Germans more effectively.
But there was a catch.
It turned out, these Germans were battling a similar problem of their own. Rubber. Britain and its colonies were the major producers of rubber, and they had blockaded German imports. Tyres, tubings, fan belts in engines, and many other critical equipment were starved of their raw material. The Germans demanded rubber in return for glass.
There’s enough evidence to suggest that this illicit agreement was actually executed. War survived. As we know, it carried on for four more years and took millions more lives. But in the summer of 1915, it was aided by the forces of economics that found loopholes even in the most baffling circumstances.
~
Economics, at large, doesn’t run on morals. If the bloodshed of that scale couldn’t prevent a trade that shouldn’t have happened, few other things can.
What reminded me of this is the relatively trivial debate raging around on social media these days.
Recently, around the New Year, there were calls for large-scale protests and boycotts of gig work, framed primarily around exploitation. There were some vociferous appeals to strike and resist the system, and the founders of companies that employ such gig workers were called out for running inhumane businesses.
Now, I’ve never been a gig worker. I don’t really know what a day in that life feels like. I also haven’t spoken to enough delivery partners to confidently claim whether they feel exploited, empowered, trapped, or simply resigned. Reality is rarely uniform at scale.
But there is one thing we do know. The existence of the gig economy itself is an economic response.
If an economic arrangement continues to sustain itself, it usually does so because it solves an immediate problem better than the alternatives available at that moment.
If people need money today, if gig work is the fastest, easiest way to earn it, and if festive periods offer a chance to earn more than usual through higher demand and incentives, then chances are economics will overpower calls for collective restraint.
Not because workers are naïve or short-sighted, but because most of them are rational. They are optimizing for their own well-being, as they should. Asking millions of loosely connected individuals, with no long-term contracts and very different personal constraints, to unionize and act against their short-term interest is an extraordinarily high bar. Especially when opting out may actually worsen their immediate situation.
Unionization is hard even in stable employment settings. In fragmented systems, it becomes even harder. The incentives simply don’t align cleanly enough, and the cost of participation in a protest doesn’t clearly justify the outcomes.
That’s why, despite the noise, despite the outrage, despite politicians, experts, and other commentators weighing in from every angle, the system carried on.
Orders were delivered. Work continued.
The real value these platforms provide is not that they have created a new aspirational profession, but that they have created access to livelihoods for people who, at that moment, have very few alternatives. People don’t stay because the work itself is fulfilling.
In some form, we have all been in that situation. Very few of us truly love our jobs. But we still stick to them, out of necessity, insecurity, and the paucity of enough meaningful options.
Similarly, for gig workers, if enough alternatives existed at scale — stable factory jobs, flexible service roles, local employment with predictable income — many would stop delivering food and groceries. In many ways, if the army of gig workers continues to grow unabated, it’s a clear indicator of a systemic failure to create meaningful jobs.
Whether the gig economy itself is a good business model, whether it is ethically sound, whether it incentivizes people to bend rules, or whether it should exist in its current form are all important questions. They deserve debate, regulation, and perhaps a thoughtful redesign.
But history suggests that none of those questions override a more basic force. Economics usually wins.
It won in 1915, when two nations at war discreetly traded the materials needed to kill each other more effectively. And it continues to win today, not because it is just or kind, but because it responds fastest to necessity.
A question for you:
Have you ever stayed in a job you didn’t like simply because the alternatives felt worse? Would you rather embrace uncertainty and choose freelancing, if you had the option?
Write to us at plainsight@wyzr.in.
What we’re reading at Wyzr
Sick Nation by Karan Sarin. It shows how India has been engulfed by a lifestyle disease epidemic and why the medical system has failed to arrest it. Goes into the root cause of these diseases and suggests practical interventions to stall or reverse them. Deeply researched, brilliantly written. Also, this is our latest release by Wyzr :)
Check it out here.
Until next time.
Best,
