Workers actually could set their own rates higher but Uber puts a floor on how little a ride can cost. Uber tested this feature and found that everyone who set a rate higher than Uber's floor amount didn't get a ride...
Uber does not let you choose your clients because they discovered discrimination occurred based on who the client was and where they were being picked up from. You are free to cancel but repeatedly cancelling means Uber will remove you from the network (you aren't putting in anything good to the system...so maybe the system isn't for you)
The work gets done when someone requests it, you don't get to negotiate that as a driver. You are able to look at customers who want future work done (scheduled rides) and book those at your convenience. If you are working in an on-demand contract role, the work has to be done...on-demand.
The ride has to be done in the same way as every ride as that is the expectation of the product. Uber doesn't tell you how to drive, doesn't tell you to set your car up in a certain way, but it does tell you some basic ground rules for doing the work.
Dictating what car you can and can't use is like regulating the equipment on the platform. You can't use 2-door cars, cars past a certain age, and a few completely reasonable restrictions (https://www.ridesharingdriver.com/uber-vehicle-requirements-...)
To me it sounds like a service like Uber requires so much control over their product that they just can’t use gig workers/independent contractors.
These are all completely reasonable things to require from a company/customer point of view. It’s completely unreasonable to demand these things of independent contractors.
No one said it's an easy business. Your arguments are basically "if they don't get control over that, then it's hurting the business".
If you need to either be at the edge of the law and discriminate or be the edge of the law and misclassify employees as contractors, to make your business work, then maybe your business model is flawed.
That discrimination is the onus of the independent contractor drivers. Without full transparency about a potential ride's pickup, drop off, and how much they will be paid for it, there is effectively no way to argue that Uber drivers are independent contractors.
> Uber does not let you choose your clients because they discovered discrimination occurred based on who the client was and where they were being picked up from.
It was pretty well known that getting a cab from certain (non-white) neighborhoods and just hailing one as a PoC was very hard pre-Uber.
You could always lodge a complain at the centralized taxi authority where some bureaucrats would input it in "the system". But in the end it achieved nothing. Uber kicking out racist drivers probably did more than decades of complains.
You did a good job describing constraints Uber has in order to deliver a product to customers. From your description there might be good reasons for those constraints such as anti discrimination or price stability. But even for "good reasons" it doesn't absolve Uber of liability for treating employees as contractors.
This comment seems to contain a non-sequitur; you argue in favor of one thing, then make a tangentially related assertion (that Uber drivers are employees) with no argument in its favor.
In your reply I see a theme common in most defences of Uber, it boils down to "without X, the business would not work"
Uber has no inherent right to exist and do business. If the existing laws preclude your prefered business model, you need to get the law changed BEFORE you go into business.
> Uber does not let you choose your clients because they discovered discrimination occurred based on who the client was and where they were being picked up from.
This assumes that the only solution for Uber is to stop drivers from selecting who they pick up and where they pick up from.
Another would be for Uber to allow drivers to make the choice, but subsidize rides from discriminated areas using money from desirable areas.
Uber does not let you choose your clients because they discovered discrimination occurred based on who the client was and where they were being picked up from. You are free to cancel but repeatedly cancelling means Uber will remove you from the network (you aren't putting in anything good to the system...so maybe the system isn't for you)
The work gets done when someone requests it, you don't get to negotiate that as a driver. You are able to look at customers who want future work done (scheduled rides) and book those at your convenience. If you are working in an on-demand contract role, the work has to be done...on-demand.
The ride has to be done in the same way as every ride as that is the expectation of the product. Uber doesn't tell you how to drive, doesn't tell you to set your car up in a certain way, but it does tell you some basic ground rules for doing the work.
Dictating what car you can and can't use is like regulating the equipment on the platform. You can't use 2-door cars, cars past a certain age, and a few completely reasonable restrictions (https://www.ridesharingdriver.com/uber-vehicle-requirements-...)