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> What keeps Uber competitive is access to a relatively cheap reservoir of labor force.

Cheap labor force means someone is underpaid. If the coop cuts the middlemen out and transfer the extra to drivers then it's a win-win: drivers get more and customers pay the same for a better service because well-paid driver => good service.

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Underpaid compared to what? If people are willing to do the work to a high professional standard for a certain wage, than that is the right compensation for that job. When you setup arbitrary fair wages above market, you must also somehow protect them from intruders from other fields willing to change jobs and benefit from the higher wages in your field. This is exactly what a co-op ends up doing most of the time - if they don't succumb to a traditional model where the initial members become the owners and the later employees have regular employment contracts.

> Underpaid compared to what?

You said: "relatively cheap". Relative to what?

It's easy to define 'cheap': relative to the wages market, market prices for driving are relatively low compared to other jobs.

'Underpaid' is a value judgment, you claim that prevailing market wages are unfair so presumably you have a better model to determine and protect higher wages.

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