"Drivers live or die by their rating" - really??? I have never given the drivers rating a moments thought. Do you seriously cancel rides because the driver doesn't have 5 stars??
They’re a tech company;a decent rating algorithm should be one of the most likely things for them to excel in, or they’d just lose to any company that does because all the good drivers they’re dropping are immediately signing up to work for a competing service.
tl;dr It is in ride-services’ best to retain good drivers, no?
Until that meaningfully changes I don’t think they care about anything but earnings.
Interestingly, that attitude is what allowed them to come in and replace yellow cabs as the de facto driver for hire option.
It's also possible that the algorithm behind the scenes allocates drivers to demand based on ( proximity AND driver rating ).
If so then lower ranked drivers would be 'starved' out by higher ranked drivers.