"The world was a very different place in 1996. Back then, fewer than one in five households owned a mobile phone, Google would not exist for two more years, and John Major was still Prime Minister. Today’s Supreme Court’s ruling that Uber drivers are workers, and not self-employed, was based upon legislation from that year. …"

You can’t exactly blame John Major’s government for failing to anticipate the rise of the gig economy. After all, even self-described experts on the future of work make predictions that are seemingly invalidated in a matter of months. Take Aaron Benanav, an academic who recently authored a book called Automation and the Future of Work