Earlier quoted context omitted.
Businesses want more profit. Consumers want to pay less. Workers want to earn more. Pretty much always. This doesn't always result in an optimal outcome. Market power, externalities, information asymmetry, etc. This is why we have regulations. Forcing the society and Uber to pay for drivers to be treated as employees seems like a very reasonable outcome. If they don't like it they can hire less drivers, but the ones…
What does it mean to be "treated like an employee"? I'd like regulation to give everyone healthcare. Are non-employees not worthy?
Even before the gig economy became a big deal, businesses like yoga studios would attempt to classify their skilled teachers as independent contractors so they could pay them well below minimum wage, but take away their ability to teach at the location if they taught somewhere else as well. Hair salons and yoga studios sometimes go so far as to charge their independent contractors rent, which would make sense if these people were truly renting the space and could freely take their clients elsewhere, but these businesses also frequently limit the contractors' ability to collect personal contact information.
When I volunteered to help people with their taxes, a large number of Uber/Lyft/DoorDash/etc. drivers were surprised to learn that not only did they have to pay large amounts of income tax that would usually be automatically deducted from their pay check, but they also had to pay double the social security and medicare taxes because they had to pay the employer and the employee portions. Companies that classify their workers as independent contractors in this way are taking advantage of the fact it can take people up to a year to realize that taxes and car maintenance will take what little income they have made.