He's right about some things and FoS about many...what he misses (something I've said numerous times before) is the IoT being used by AI/bots/machines to run the entire UnEconomy at zero cost...eventually.
And 'sharing economy', my kiester. That's just a stroke-himself-and-everybody-else routine as they all lose their jobs getting there.
We may all one day pay for 3D printing patterns with our bot repair wages. I wonder if we'll all be grease-stained Gilliam characters in overalls. Everyone should read The Diamond Age. I liked that poor people could print what they needed and apparently had constant high speed connectivity. It was sad to think that a great education might still be so far out of reach for children with imperfect parents. I appreciate that Rifkin is trying to get ahead on these policies from a seemingly humanist place.
When people talk about the IoT, all I hear is "a massive attack surface that lets hackers do real-world damage". And really it is inevitable that the IoT will be insecure, at least the most elite hackers. There is no such thing as a secure system, and the wonderful thing about the IoT is that unlike a big safe where someone has to break into your house and actually move all your valuables, a hacker from halfway around the world can break into your delf-driving car and kidnap you. And the worst part is, it will be unavoidable in the future, unless you're willing to be called a luddite. There will be absolutely no real defense against a determined adversary. That is why the IoT scares me. Privacy issues are a big second.
I met a guy recently who works for Cisco, and he's pretty high up in the division pushing for IoT. I mentioned that I thought that it was a nice buzzword but that I didn't think it was going anywhere. He of course disagreed. I then questioned whether it was possible to avoid being a complete security nightmare and he threw out a bunch more buzzwords trying to convince me that Cisco had figured that out. I was not convinced.
New jobs will be made as old ones are replaced. Nobody in the 1600's could have imagined working in an office. Nobody today will imagine what jobs will be like tomorrow. Things that aren't common, luxuries not expected, will become common, and those luxuries will likely require human input. Secondly, we have a democracy, and a functional (enough) one to ensure that if enough people are truly out of work, if enough people are displaced, the government will take steps to fix the system. Kickstarter, youtube, 3D printing, we are seeing more and more signs of a creative-maker type economy where people custom design and produce highly specialized products for other people. It's these sorts who will become the next computer scientists, as computer science has replaced the secretary. In short, I agree with the article, or what I read of it. Jobs aren't going to disappear, or go down in number in the long run.