(having been an uber/lyft driver) I would say this is exactly wrong. The person being "cheated" is the rider - because if the rider is not knowledgeable enough to know that the ride could be less if they went with the "not-estimated" rate, then they could have not paid upfront instead letting the ride roll.

The driver gets paid for miles and minutes. Moreover, if say something unexpected happens, say traffic, Uber will eat the difference.

I mean if uber loses the lawsuit, they are simply going to change the T&C with the driver so that all rides are preset, and the driver will be paid the estimated rates, and drivers will get screwed when there's lots of traffic.

With the estimated rate, the product sold to the customer is the trip, not the time/mileage. As the driver is a contractor and not an employee of uber, they are an intermediary in the transaction. They are reselling the trip for me for a significant cut. If they sell it for more and don't give me my fair cut, that's theft.

In any case, technically everyone is getting screwed and they likely end up sharing whatever the markup is. (Driver loses wages, user pays more).

it's not theft. The driver contract says you get paid back for the time and mileage that you incur, NOT "whatever the customer gets paid". Besides, if the trip goes over the amount that the customer pays (beacause, say, for traffic, or an unmarked road closure) then uber pays out the full amount to the driver for the actual time/mileage incurred.

let's say that Uber posted really unreasonably fast times for the given route instead. Would you then argue that uber could systematically pay the drivers a lower rate, because that's the fare they pitched to the passenger?

Well, it depends entirely on the contract between the farmer and the reseller. If the contract states you get the retail price minus 5% and I lie to you about the retail price, certainly this is fraud. But if the contract states you get $X/pound, and that's exactly what I pay you, the retail price never enters into it.

If later on the farmer complains that they were paid according to the contract terms, but their meat is retailing for a higher markup than they expected because of its enticing packaging, I don't see how the farmer is entitled to any relief on that.