You must have missed the part of my comment that specifies:
"the firms who get the contract to do the work and *turn around and subcontract the work to you for pennys on the dollar"
>(e.g. Uber might contract with local companies formed solely to employ Uber drivers in that locality, so that Uber doesn't have to deal with all of the complexity of treating all of its drivers as employees.)
Then what is to stop this new employment firm Uber has to contract with to obtain drivers from deciding after they have the infrastructure of drivers in place from cutting Uber out and launching their own ride-share app?
At the end of the day Uber isn't claiming drivers as contractors because of complexity, they are doing it to lower their costs.
Hmmm, I've never seen that arrangement before. Maybe it's a common thing somewhere though. I can't imagine why anyone would take that kind of job.
In theory this should be really good for software contractors, because in this should rip out the middlemen (i.e. the firms who get the contract to do the work and turn around and subcontract the work to you for pennys on the dollar). Now in theory these middlemen are gone and you as the software developer should be able to obtain the contract directly directly from the company.