So in my mind the driver was at fault criminal negligence, but when the driver can be any untrained pleb with a phone, the company assumes the risk and should be held liable.
What if that's what you want?
Why should we be pressuring corporate middlemen to be regulators and law enforcement? They're not only bad at it and in no position to do it well, their attempts do more harm than good.
How is a corporation supposed to "vet" drivers? The only plausible tools they have are things like background checks. So now you have someone who is only trying to put food on the table getting excluded from some of the only work it's easy to get quickly because they have an unrelated drug conviction from when they were 19 years old. Meanwhile the same thing happens in the case in question because that driver can pass the background check.
Whereas if you put the liability on the driver, i.e. the person who is actually there and making the decision, then losing their fancy new car and maybe going to jail provides the right incentive to not dump people in a dangerous place, to the person who is actually choosing to do it.
The platform enables anyone to interact with clients having minimal training except a drivers license. They are operating as agents of the corporation just classified as adjunct “gig workers.” Read: a loop hole to abdicate responsibility and blame the workers while the company makes money on them with minimal overhead.
Imagine an app where anyone could be an underpaid nurse, and said nurse poisons a patient with fentanyl. Who’s to blame then? The company for lack of oversight or the nurse? Or both?
Wait until you hear about the companies operating a telephone network that lets anyone call or text each other.
> They are operating as agents of the corporation
So if the local library has a jobs board and you post a listing there, are you now an agent of the library and they should be responsible for everything you do?
What about the Post Office or FedEx? Should you be able to sue them if someone ships you defective goods?
> Imagine an app where anyone could be an underpaid nurse, and said nurse poisons a patient with fentanyl. Who’s to blame then?
Obviously the nurse. Why should it be someone other than the person who did it?