That's twisting the facts a bit though, no? They can always turn off the app if they don't want to take jobs, or work for Lyft or Doordash or whatever; that's always been the case. The problem here is that a specific level of information symmetry causes a self-destructive collective behavior.

This is akin to a hypothetical scenario where plumbers somehow get hold of some magic technology that ranks jobs by pay and then proceed to only accept the most profitable ones, eventually leading to a situation where people can't get plumbers and the entire town ends up becoming youtube-watching DYIers, making plumbing an non-viable trade in the town.

Exactly, he needed to come to your place. That's how Uber used to operate (the destination was not known until the driver arrived to pick you up). The "magic" in this hypothetical case would be something that tells the plumber how expensive the job would be without needing to drive half way across town for something that a bottle of drano would have fixed.

If you're advocating for drivers' "rights" to pull these kinds of shenanigans at the expense of riders, the market has some bad news for you.