I read Airbnb Magazine so you don’t have to — not that you have to, not even if you are an Airbnb host that receives the publication for free in the mail, or if you’re a guest that, inexplicably, wants to read your host’s copy of Airbnb Magazine. I have gone out of my way to peruse it, so if you want to know what a lifestyle magazine for the gig economy says about precarious working life today, you can read this instead.

The short answer is that Airbnb Magazine reveals no more and no less about the gig economy than Life revealed about the mass-production economy, or Lucky did about 1990s globalization. In other words, nothing, other than a fantasy of production without exploitation, of an economy made of smooth glossy surfaces, benefiting all.

Here and elsewhere, Airbnb’s self-presentation is comically at odds with reality. According to its media kit, the magazine “celebrates humanity wherever it exists — across borders, time zones, languages and skin tones — to showcase travel that is accessible, immersive, local and people-focused.” Its focus is “connection,” the vapid word for our conscription in data-mining digital networks so beloved by Silicon Valley executives and public relations flacks. Airbnb, the company, describes itself as a horizontal platform “powered by local hosts” who open up their homes to make us all more “connected.” Just as Uber and Lyft have no drivers, Airbnb has no housekeepers or landlords; there are only “hospitality entrepreneurs,” welcoming us into their abodes.