How in the world could you argue that they didn't create markets or job opportunities? There are probably 10x more uber/lyft drivers in almost every city in the US than there ever were taxi drivers. People simply take more trips, or have someone else drive them when they would have previously driven themselves, now that Uber & Lyft are so prevalent. People order delivery food from restaurants more often instead of cooking for themselves. This is new money added into the economy, yes a big slice goes to the corporations, but only ~30%, the rest goes directly to drivers for whom this is a newly available source of income. Apparently 80% of drivers do it part time as an additional source of income, which they wouldn't have a way to generate otherwise.
You seem to fit very cleanly into the category I just mentioned above, you're so angry about some perceived injustice of Uber & Lyft merely existing, that you want them to be punished more than you care about any other part of this outcome. And this is not a slavery ring, nobody is being exploited, so you should take a deep breath about that too. In polls drivers overwhelmingly express a preference to remain independent contractors rather than become full-time.
Corrupt, exploitative industry gets replaced with less corrupt, equally exploitative industry while also delivering far better value to consumers. Seems like a win to me.
Why are we so up in arms about Uber, when Dominos delivery drivers get about the same paltry compensation, no benefits, and far less freedom? The same could be said for pretty much all minimum wage jobs.
Like the parent insinuated, all these socialist / egalitarian arguments don't explain why we are in such a rush to fix for Uber drivers what has been broken for every low-paying job ever.
(That being said, with a rise in independent contractors, we should fix unemployment insurance to include them)
Similarly, if a market is saturated with under-paid over-worked labor forces, then you can't end up with humane, fair alternatives. You'll get those when you eliminate the exploitative markets first. Uber & Lyft didn't make new markets. They didn't create new job opportunities. They replaced existing ones - namely, taxis, and they achieved disruption via unsustainable economics & exploitative practices. There's no reason to believe that when that hole is plugged that all "order a ride" services will vanish. We'll just have taxis again. Remove some of the barriers that gave taxi services pseudo-monopolies, and there you go.