I'm glad that you manage to feel freedom and that your relationship with Uber is that of an independent contractor, but I think that is not the reality for many people that drive for them.

There are many people who drive full-time for Uber, who have taken out loans to pay for their cars, etc., and whose livelihoods depend completely on their ability to work for Uber. Those people have a lot wrapped up in that, and their situation is fairly precarious -- if Uber decides to kick them off the platform (which they can do arbitrarily, for reasons like "they're too black" or "they're too female") or change the rate structure, those people could be completely screwed.

Uber, for those people, is effectively an employer, whether or not their lawyers have managed to convince some municipalities that this is the case. Uber knows exactly what they are doing, which is to cynically pretend as if they are running a marketplace in order to avoid having to deal with labor laws.