> Unless the company has a lot of fat to trim, it has to come from customers in the form of higher prices, or from investors throwing more cash onto the bonfire.

Nope, there's lots more options than that. Cut executive pay. Tax high earners more and provide social services like healthcare and public transit, to reduce cost and demand on these services. And yes, prices would likely go up, because they're no longer being subsidized by gov't welfare.

> It's very possible that this market only exists at the size that it does at a price that doesn't support what people in the US think of as "a wage they can live off of"

Then the market is exploiting labor and is being subsidized by the welfare system (else the workers couldn't live, by definition). If we're going to subsidize unprofitable activities, we should do that as a society, not by funneling cash to Uber's owners.

> Cut executive pay

This doesn't really work when Uber has something like 3 million drivers worldwide. Distributing the CEO's entire salary among drivers would yield them only a handful of coins worth of extra income per person per year. There's simply no way to translate exec pay into meaningful comp for drivers at this sort of scale.

I do, however, believe it's possible for the government to establish better social services (e.g. universal healthcare at similar tax rates exists just north of the border) if only the US govt adjusted its spending priorities.

I ran the math a while ago. If Uber CEO worked for free, the salary saved amounts to 1 or 2 cents per ride.

>Nope, there's lots more options than that. Cut executive pay. Tax high earners more and provide social services like healthcare and public transit, to reduce cost and demand on these services. And yes, prices would likely go up, because they're no longer being subsidized by gov't welfare.

Executive pay, etc was what I was referring to as "fat". But what fraction of Uber's expenses do you think executive pay makes up? This is an oft-stated refrain, but anytime anyone runs the numbers, it quickly becomes apparent that those aren't large enough to make any difference across the huge number of employees involved.

I'm totally onboard with the social reforms you mention, but these are outside the purview of Uber/Lyft and this attempt to force them to treat these people as employees.

> If we're going to subsidize unprofitable activities

I must be missing something, how is Uber,Lyft being subsidized?

> It's very possible that this market only exists at the size that it does at a price that doesn't support what people in the US think of as "a wage they can live off of", and that by mandating more compensation, then there will be a whole lot of drivers for whom this just isn't an option anymore.

And that's different from many other hypothetical services how? If we accept that the floor should be lowered it should be for everyone, and if we don't it shouldn't. It should be an even playing field, not something where some companies slip through by not employing their workers.

You're right, I don't think they should exist in their current form, they don't seem to be viable without near-monopoly pricing power anyway. I'm just saying this because people act like we can just mandate that companies pay more, without mentioning that it's probably going to mean that those jobs just won't exist. There's a reason taxis were a niche service in most parts of the country - people haven't historically wanted to pay what they cost outside of eg going to the airport. Which means that almost all those people everyone is claiming to act on behalf of are probably going to have to find something else to do for money if Uber is forced to take them on as employees with full benefits and high wages.