It is the business owner's (investor's) responsibility to understand and plan for the long-term. Not planning for the long-term is exactly what happened here. I do not believe this man should have been disrespected, however, his decision to buy a car he could not afford, was his own and was objectively a bad decision.
Do you know the story of the grasshopper and the ants[0]? Regardless of who is controlling the weather (in our case, Uber). Its the grasshopper's fault for not storing food for the winter.
[0] http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/AntGra.shtm...
This sounds like an unrealistic expectation. One would argue Uber was either disloyal or disillusioned if they rely on such people to advance their business.
Here Uber changing policy or pricing is a risk! In this case, to make a sound investment, you need to calibrate the rewards against that risk.
Only looking at the potential upside, not realizing that the risk exists, is foolish.
Faulting Uber, for being flexible to market forces, is naive. Not faulting the driver for making an uneducated investment, that is unreasonable.
[0] Either to facilitate driving for Uber, or something else
The interesting part happens when you understand that it is impossible to make an educated decision to become a Uber driver without having a relation of trust between Uber and drivers (because otherwise you would need insider information about Uber's business innovations, to get fixed pricing agreement for a given duration, which Uber will never do, etc).
Then, you don't fault Uber for being "flexible to market forces", you may fault them for engaging in deceptive business, just like you would blame a multi level marketing scheme. And when you specifically look at Uber's strategy to mislead potential drivers, there's tons of telling stuff.
In that light, you can still blame the drivers for making bad decisions (discussing the reality of Homo œconomicus would drive us out of scope). But you must also fault Uber for maliciously luring their drivers in a scheme that is not sustainable for them.
I'm glad they lost this case: http://www.moneylife.in/article/uber-to-pay-20-million-for-a...
If not for abusing growth, it would have not raised funding and would have likely failed.
Uber is a business, not a charity. They exist to maximize profits. If you understand that point, then you see why your point is irrelevant.
Also, what the heck does it mean to "abuse growth"?
Even if that's true, the CEO is the right person to make a complaint to. Or do you think the cab driver should get an economics degree and acquire a fine understanding of market forces?
Driver buys a $97k car, goes bankrupt because as it turns out buying a super expensive car that you obviously can't afford is a dumb idea, then decides to blame someone else for his poor decision making.