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Comment by renewiltord | Hacker News Reader

Pretty nonsensical argument. Uber isn't an employer not because it's an app but because it's a service that connects you to someone. Your phone company isn't an employer just because you use them to hire a handyman.

So wordy only to use a nonsensical strawman. I get it: you're trying to create a new buzzword the way you did with "enshittification". So the usual suspects will be big fans. Good luck.

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If Uber is just a service that connects you to someone, why does Uber take the majority of a user's payment and why is it against Uber's TOS to share contact information with your drivers so you can call them and ask for a ride outside the app?

I think you have a strong argument here, but there's a problem of deeper and widespread rot at play.

The reason Uber can get away with pretending it's just a "connector" is because the entire tech ecosystem has been allowed to normalize that kind of control without accountability.

Look at Apple and Google: they take a 30% cut on every sale and ban any competing payment systems. That's the same pattern - absolute gatekeeping disguised as "market facilitation."

Our regulators have become so complacent that this behavior is now seen as the default way digital markets work. The problem isn’t just Uber's misclassification; it's that the entire platform economy is built on pretending these companies are neutral middlemen when they're really gatekeepers.

Who pays the driver?

I would caution against using this as a discriminator, since the scheme whereby you are billed by the phone company for third-party services has long existed, but that doesn't make AT&T your boss.

Do you mean “but that doesn’t make AT&T _their_ boss”? Because in this scenario I’m paying AT&T, right?

Exactly. If Uber is really just providing a service to the drivers, the drivers should be paying a subscription to Uber while taking money directly from the customer.

(Edit) And they should be setting their own prices!

Surely there are alternatives to Uber then?

There are alternatives to Uber like there are alternatives to McDonalds -- they all do the same thing and treat their drivers the same way.

There is a lot of jurisprudence regarding whether or not the employer-employee relationship exists, and you can't simply dismiss that with a few words. Obviously the phone company does not employ the handyman, because if the handyman declines to fix your house the phone company is not going to disconnect his phone. But in the case of Uber, Uber absolutely will throw a driver off the platform unless they hew to a strict set of behaviors.

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