The majority of the public (at least in the US) of a legal driving age possess a drivers license. Even persons without a drivers license are generally familiar enough with cars/vehicles to make a baseline assumption about the safety of the vehicle and/or driver. I'm not saying you can 100% accurately judge this, but that overall most people can make an informed decision about the risk they are undertaking with a ride-sharing service like Uber.
Conversely, most people do not have pilots licenses, familiarity with small aircraft, or an ability to properly judge safe vs. unsafe conditions. Couple that with the fact that you are dealing with a method of travel that succeeds only if it can defy gravity without incident for the duration of the trip, and you have (IMO) a much much higher risk than with something like Uber.
And yet people worry a lot about things that are much less dangerous than driving or getting a lift. I don't know how you're defining "informed", but the decisions people make about driving certainly aren't reasonable or rational in an objective sense.
Although state DOT logic would imply "uber general aviation" would be OK, the FAA has never felt the need to obey state DOT logic, which overall is probably good.
Often regulations exist to mitigate information assymmetries. That's why they tend to be so much more permissive for a person to put him- or herself at risk, than to put strangers at risk.
Now apply this to almost every contract a person enters into. Especially something big like buying a home.
In other words, not even remotely comparable.
I think at least part of the regulations is to limit the incentive for less-qualified pilots to fly at all. If pilots without commercial licenses are allowed to fly as de facto commercial pilots, they will have additional incentive to fly, and do more of it.
The risks the FAA manages are not just those to paying customers; aviation imposes external risks, as well.
I have a feeling that the present generations think that relatively sane job market where employees ae not treated as resource to be used up is something that occurs naturally, and are happy to keep reversing all the changes our grandparents' grandparents paid in blood for, that let us have safe workplaces and not-too-unhealthy hours.
This is flatly false. Many of us believe that the vast majority of "regulation" is made in a corporatistic, profiteering mode.
...so much so that, when a perhaps quite reasonable regulation, such as this one, comes along, it is necessary to evaluate whether it is a boy crying wolf.
And that sucks.
> Problems start when the interest of those creating the regulations are not aligned with the population.
It's also possible that it's just the nature of government power, and has nothing to do with the interests of the individuals ostensibly involved.