Some drivers would like that arrangement, especially if that's their full time job. But some drivers who do this for supplemental income may not be able to meet the demand of the new fixed schedule set by Uber/Lyft.
I don't think you understand how a business like this works. For a customer serving business, they need to make sure they are staffed appropriately.
Would it make sense for a restaurant to offer all of their staffs "flexible hours"? Is it ok for the waiter to show up at 3am when he has trouble sleeping and just get paid doing nothing?
It's not about 9-5, but it's about when the customers show up.
Normal businesses with normal benefits that hire for off-normal shifts generally pay higher for those shift slots or find an employee that values that shift higher than mid-day and employers absolutely can have an expectation of business hours and fire people for failing to meet that. They can also choose to allow their employees to work more flexible hours but this choice is entirely disconnected from contractor vs. FTE.
In the service industry in particular (as you noted above) showing up to work outside of core hours isn't likely to result in any productive work - maybe that waiter could run inventory or do some prep (and actually 3 AM isn't insanely early if you get a big breakfast rush) but that's entirely disconnected from uber saying: "Darn - we wanted to give them flexible hours, but now that they're employees I guess we can't let anyone work after 5PM" that's just BS PR from the company.
Uber isn't against this because it would make it impossible to run their business, they're against this because they're being forced to pay into things like unemployment which will make it more difficult for them to be profitable.
They can't guarantee flexibility and full-time employment. That's the point.
>"Americans shalt work from nine until five so sayeth we the founders".
If there is no demand or there is over-supply at some particular time in some particular area, you can't will a job into existence.
>They're just griping that they need to start paying benefits.
Are they griping? The costs are going to be passed down to the consumer. They will still be more competitive than taxis (which are still abysmal with customer service). And by raising regulatory costs and requirements, you're making it harder for any new entrants to come in and compete. Sounds like Uber and Left break-even, and everyone else loses. Alternatively, if this new regulation kills Uber and Lyft, then everyone loses.
Does anyone actually believe these companies at this point? Who actually aren't saying much any longer.
I'd be far less surprised if Google shutdown Waymo in a year or two than if they actually introduced a door-to-door driving service in an urban area without a safety driver present.
And technology is accelerating at a much faster rate today.
I actually do think highway driving can be automated relatively easily but that still assumes a competent licensed driver behind the wheel.
I'm sure a lot of people believed that in 1970 but look where we are now. Technology accelerates at a much faster pace but often times in ways that you don't expect. The people in 1970 probably didn't imagine smartphones with a global 4G network but instead of flying cars we got this.
Deep learning/machine learning have made remarkable advances in recent years--primarily because of both computational (esp. GPU) and storage/data advances.
However, in spite of a lot of money and talent expended on understanding organic brains and human-level cognition over the decades, progress has been slow and there's a general belief among scientists who work in AI spanning CS and neuroscience that there are aspects to human learning and reasoning that we just don't really understand yet.
And that more deep learning, data, and programmed rules won't get you to autonomous vehicles outside of some limited domains. (Which is valuable by itself; it just doesn't get you to robo-taxies.)
Ok?
We already do that when human driven taxis do that, so I don't see the problem.
Do you mean something like peak hours split shift schedules that bus/train/ferry drivers have?