If the Taskers are complaining and the customers aren't too happy either, then I see an opportunity here for someone to step in and provide services like the TR of the old.
This new system seems to fit the classically snarky definition of a compromise: a situation nobody is completely happy with.
The article implies a third option: keeping the open-bidding system of old, but focusing on a vertical or two, instead of trying to be all things to all potential tasks. This might be a better solution, but again, you run into standardization and supply/demand allocation inefficiencies. Less of them, but they're still there.
There seems to be a good reason why "second-generation" sharing economy services, like Uber and Airbnb, do really well, while services like TaskRabbit don't. These newer services are on tightly controlled rails, they're standardized (or at least standardizing), and they're operating in specific verticals. They are in the variance-minimization business. Old-model TaskRabbit was in the variance-creation business.
I feel like that's a rather generic stand-in complaint for (what frequently ends up being) something entirely different.
If both of the actually important parties - tasker & purchaser - were happy beforehand, the problem is TaskRabbit, not them.
Maybe the lesson here is "don't accept $37 million in funding for an odd-jobs coordinator"?
It's not a tasker's fault that some website needs to squeeze an unreasonable amount of profit out of running groceries & fixing desks.
It seems like they were running about $500K a year. Even with 100% growth per year, it's going to take 6 years to begin moving $40 million annual revenue. The investors aren't going to wait for that long. And, as people have pointed out, once I use TaskRabbit, why don't I contact the task person directly next time?
Attempts to quantify TaskRabbit's numbers: http://www.quora.com/How-much-revenue-is-Taskrabbit-com-maki...
But this adhoc system was working for the buyers and the sellers! TR had a pretty solid growth rate (8%/mo, as mentioned in another comment), which is pretty solid. Why would you want to switch to a system which both parties do not like? When has pissing off the majority of your customers ever been a successful strategy?
It sounds like TaskRabbit, faced with that predicament, decided to screw the workers, which is disappointing but unsurprising.