Don’t they also fund unemployment benefits with payroll taxes? In that case, Uber drivers will have to pay at least one side of those, if not both like they do with SS and Medicare deductions.

And watch Uber cut the pay of drivers to pay for unemployment benefits. A company has to pay into a state unemployment fund for drivers.

That's not a foregone conclusion, since wages aren't as closely linked to that payment as one might imagine. For example, in California:

> The taxable wage limit is $7,000 per employee.

(Yes, that's per year)

https://www.edd.ca.gov/Payroll_Taxes/Rates_and_Withholding.h...

And watch the drivers switch to Lyft or one of the many smaller local competitors...

Why do you suppose that Lyft wouldn't do the same thing? It's not like the equally unprofitable Lyft could just take the hit. If the drivers go to one of the local competitors that no one has heard of, what are the chances that people from out of town or even native New Yorkers will have heard of them? The drivers have to go where the users are.

All of the companies will either have to raise rates or cut the amount they are paying drivers. Uber and Lyft can't just keeping banking on their VC benefactors forever. Eventually they have to turn a profit.

> Uber and Lyft can't just keeping banking on their VC benefactors forever.

The other accusation I've heard, relevant to the discussion at hand, is that they're (also) banking on shifting the costs of externalities onto the drivers and/or the social safety net.

> Eventually they have to turn a profit.

Or go out of business, which could be considered beneficial if they're banking more on the externalities than VCs.

The law would equally apply to them.

Remember the original & current taxi model is to rent a medallion car for $3000/month as an independent contractor. Except in this model, you are $3k in debt at the start of the month and have to work an undefined amount of hours to make up that debt + have enough to live on at the end of it.

In that world, Uber is an improvement.