If a business model requires the exploitation of its workers to remain profitable, is that a business worth having? If forcing businesses to pay their laborers a wage sufficient to have a bare minimum standard of living before paying shareholders for their speculative investment, is that a bad thing?

Therein lies the harsh business reality. Every product and service you use, somewhere along its production (including basic materials), distribution or marketing has workers earning poverty level wages. And many can only function as a business with low wage workers or automation.

Are these business worth having? If we hope to maintain our quality of life, I believe yes.

And because the choice for these workers is low wages or no wages, then answer is probably yes for them as well.

The only other option for higher wages would be for these businesses to be state-sponsored, which is at least worth consideration.

> many can only function as a business with low wage workers or automation.

If this were true, they would not have extra money to give to shareholders. The idea that a corporation is allowed to pay poverty wages while still claiming profit for speculative investors is the problem. That isn't a harsh reality, that is legally sanctioned exploitation. Does every business do this? Of course not, but looking at corporate profits over the last 20 years, it is clear this is the norm.

> The only other option for higher wages would be for these businesses to be state-sponsored, which is at least worth consideration.

Completely untrue. The money is already there. It is just being given to speculators, not workers. Weird how average wages have gone down in the last 40 years but CEO pay has gone up almost a 1,000%.

But are they exploited?

If drivers really lost money working with Uber or if it was so little money compared to minimal wages, nobody would be driving!

If it were true that people doing job= no exploitation, then we wouldn’t need labor laws. Paying people below poverty wages, and people doing the job because they need the money is exploitation. It is taking advantage of the asymmetry of the power in a relationship between a rich company and a poor employee to set terms that that are exploitative of the employee.

But in this case, it's claimed that any fast food joint job pays better than Uber. I don't see how the platform could keep a steady number of drivers if that was true.

And, to he honest, I really don't like the condescending attitude some politicians have toward Uber drivers. They seem to assume they can't do the math to figure out if they are profitable or not.