Uber doesn't claim to be a transportation company.

It claims to be a marketplace, putting transportation consumers in touch with providers. Except it "owns" the customer relationship and dictates many aspects of the provider activity and equipment.

No, you put your brand on the chairs and if the customer likes them they can buy from you again.

And I imagine Uber does forbid selling other services during rides. If not, I feel like Uber rides would be full of people pushing multi-level marketing.

If Uber wants to crack down on this, it's openly happening in Vegas.

https://www.uber.com/newsroom/uber-cargo-teaming-raise-prote...

Full stop, this is when you cross the line into baseless speculation.

Unless you have solid objective facts, it's disingenuous to continue propping up an argument with meritless speculation.

In what way is this different than putting your phone number inside your car where the passenger can take it down if they want it?

> And I imagine Uber does forbid selling other services during rides. If not, I feel like Uber rides would be full of people pushing multi-level marketing.

I can't actually find the Uber driver agreement on the internet, but pyramid schemes are illegal, and drivers who peddle scummy garbage to passengers are liable to get bad reviews, so there is no reason to expect that a lack of this would have to be because Uber prohibits it.

Multi-level marketing is still common, and often the payoff might be worth your rating getting tanked.

If nothing else, it seems like stories of this happening would be common. Even just "if you listen to my fifteen minute thing on timeshares, I'll pay for your ride."

Happens all the time, see the equate brand at Walmart or the Kroger brand at Kroger

Sure those are larger scale but there is nothing stopping Acme Furniture from contacting with Joe Woodworker to make them some chairs branded Acme Furniture where the customer has no idea who Joe Woodworker is nor is Joe Woodworker an employee of Acme Furniture

This is not uncommon in the Services industry as well, hell Software development is full of Subcontracting where Company A will contract development to Company B who will hire Freelancer C to do the work, Company A may never know who Freelance C is, and to the extend they do they may not know the contractual relationship between Company B and freelance C (i.e are they an employee or a contractor)

This happens in alot of industries and has since the dawn of employment, Uber just has a different scale

When I go to a new city, I make note of great Uber drivers. I then hire them directly. Often, they become a porter of sorts. I pay them to drive but also e.g. for taking out laundry and recommending places of interest.

Which can get them kicked off the app, and leave them with tens of thousands of dollars in car loans that they have no way of repaying. That's what makes them employees and not independent contractors, the fact that they aren't allowed to do this.

Can you cite a single example of this?

This assumes every single driver on the platform is a debtor of subprime auto loans.