Except Taxi services were at least reasonably well regulated and had award wages, including vacation and sick leave (Australia) and now people work for less than minimum wage and have jack shit entitlements, can be terminated at will.

Same goes for many other gig economy roles.

I don't know about Aussie but in the U.S. the only good cities for cabs were the very large and dense cities like NYC. Everywhere else cab services were awful. Cars were not clean, they often wouldn't take credit card, it would take 30 minutes or more to get picked up, it was just terrible service. I know Lyft only takes 20% of fare, so drivers get the bulk of fee and I pay $25 for a 15 minute ride to the airport and tip $5. I've heard drivers average between $18 and $25 an hour, so well above minimum wage.

The quality of the service is unrelated to current discussion about workers' rights being dismantled by the gig economy. Minimum wage is only one aspect of workers' rights.

Maybe that isn't a thing in US, but there are countries where work conditions of handyman services are regulated either by unions or guilds.