What happens when you look at it like this; A Uber driver must accept some % of request sent their way (any class), but if you want to be sent uber black request then you must have an appropriate car.
I feel like you are looking at it from a top down view, vs a bottom up view. I am not saying ether view is right or wrong. I just find it hard to follow the logic to how that makes them employees.
But I have struggled with the employee argument from the start, so I am a bit bias at this point.
A big part of why I think people feel the way you do is because the system is programmed, and automated. If i was a guy looking for contractors to do jobs for me naturally people who were more consistently available and that I have worked with in the past would get jobs before people who can only be available "whenever". The only difference is that was some sort of decision I made in my head vs a system who had thresholds programmed.
What I feel like uber has done is automated the process of hiring contractors for on the spot jobs. And somehow people don't like the automation of it, or the rules. I feel like the solution is simple. Don't drive for uber if you don't like the terms. Go get a taxi medallion if you want to make your own rules, or drive for one of the competitors.
The IRS has guidelines: http://www.twc.state.tx.us/news/efte/appx_d_irs_ic_test.html
Arguments for drivers as employees:
Behavioral Control 1a (the relevant argument I am making), 1b (Black drivers have specific types of cars), 1f
Type of Relationship 11
> What I feel like uber has done is automated the process of hiring contractors for on the spot jobs.
That is not true because Uber dictates the pricing. In fact you as the passenger are not hiring the contractor. If you look at it from a per-ride-transaction perspective it is actually one more reason why Uber drivers are employees (Financial Control 7, Uber limits the extent to which a driver can realize a profit on an individual ride).
Looking at Uber drivers as being contracted by the passengers does not make sense.
I think 1a and 1f are the strongests points. I do feel 1b is a bit of a stretch. I don't think somebody becomes an employee because they require you to use a hammer and not a rock to push nails into wood when building a house. While that is not the best analogy I think you should be able to expect the contractor to show up to work with the right tools to do the job.
I would really like to see a system that was more like a real time Angie's list. In such when ride request came in drivers made bids, and requesters could pick from the bids. The bids might also have information about distance from pickup location (or expected pickup ETA, along with price). Maybe have a default setting to pick lowest bidder and shortest ETA. But other things like car styles or types could be part of the system too.
In any case thank you for your reply. You have given me some things to think about.
This is actually a relevant distinction for the building trades. A contractor will have their own nail gun with a brand-specific feeding system, or might even choose to use an impact driver in certain circumstances. When a construction firm requires all its subcontractors to have a particular model of nail gun that would be an argument for them being employees.
> I would really like to see a system that was more like a real time Angie's list. In such when ride request came in drivers made bids, and requesters could pick from the bids. The bids might also have information about distance from pickup location (or expected pickup ETA, along with price). Maybe have a default setting to pick lowest bidder and shortest ETA. But other things like car styles or types could be part of the system too.
This was how a lot of people expected Internet commerce to work in the early 1990s - the research term for it was agents/multi-agent systems. The passenger would have their agent put out a call for bids for a ride from one location to another. The driver's agents would reply with bids and the passenger agent would take the lowest one. The driver's agent would base the bid on some function that could take into account things like distance, predicted driving time based on current traffic conditions, predicted mileage cost based on MPG estimates based on data from the car's OBDII sensor data, etc.
That would be a market system. Uber and Lyft are a duopoly from the point of view of passengers and monopsonies from the point of view of drivers.
Sometimes, maybe even most of the time, you'll get a high CPM (like Uber Black). Sometimes you'll get a low CPM (compare this to Uber X). Regardless, you have to do X amount of business with them or else they drop you.
Sometimes this means taking higher quality traffic (thus potentially higher CPM), and funnelling it to a certain advertiser at a lower rate simply to maintain your impression level.
That doesn't make web site owners, employees of ad companies even if they're solely dependant on a single ad company for their livelihood.