>Out of curiosity, what are the ethical concerns? The arrangement is not being made by the middleman company. I don't see how it is unethical to not pay them for something they did not do.
Their service was connecting drivers and riders -- allowing them to find each other for the transaction. They connected you. That was their service. (They provide other related intermediary services, but the "finding" function is the big one.)
Same issue as when a recruiter finds leads and the employer makes an offer to the employee directly and cuts out the recruiter, which is why they set up a bunch of contractual barriers to stop it.
EDIT: Sorry, I misunderstood the use case -- that wouldn't apply to future bookings after the first one's been completed and they've exchanged information. But the "moat" there is the difficulty of iterating through your network of past uber drivers for each future ride.
>Point (B) doesn't make sense to me. Why do you have to accept and then cancel? You just get the driver's phone number and talk to them directly.
AFAIK, they don't give you any way to contacting each other until the ride is accepted. Am I mistaken here?
>If you're instead saying that drivers are employees of these companies, then maybe you're right about all the rest of it. But you can't have it both ways!
No. You can have a legitimate claim to compensation for connecting two people without the seller thereby being your employee -- see the recruiting example (though it's a bit confusing in that there is another employment relationship in the picture but I'm sure you see the mapping -- a recruiter can legitimately claim that they're owed a cut while not saying that their the employer of the, er, hiring manage or the candidate).
EDIT: As above, that wouldn't apply to future rides or job offers after that contract.