I love the Economist. But, this article, given my everyday experience, doesn’t feel right – kinda like Robert Solow’s quote back in the ‘80’s, “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox).
My own view is that IT didn't really add to “white collar” productivity until (1) it became (widely) networked, (2) network connections were always-on and (3) computing/communications devices were always connected to the network.
Standalone PCs are better than typewriters, adding machines, mimeograph machines, etc., but not exponentially better – (one of my favorite quotes from an author I know illustrates this: “Giving everyone a word processor will not significantly increase the number of great novels that get written.”).
Not sure what the analog is w/r/t the Gig Economy.
True or not, the good news is that it’s certainly not a widely-held belief in the investor community.