I always thought Uber avoided such a clause now and would continue to do so in the future, regardless of monopoly status, because their contractors being reclassified as employees would be disastrous to their business model.

But how do you get the monopoly position in the first place? Also, that assumes the law doesn't invalidate those clauses.

As I said in the original post, by using VC cash to undercut competition and drive them out of business.

And others can't get VC cash, why?

VC cash isn't infinite, and the amount available today won't last indefinitely. And are many VCs really likely to invest in a new startup when Uber just got over a billion dollars of cash? You can be as innovative and disruptive as you want, you're still going to have an extremely hard time beating a company with $1.2bn in the bank.

Anti-trust violation