Which brings me to the most important point: Lyft and Juno have effectively claimed that being forced to pay their drivers a living wage on each ride would put them at a competitive disadvantage. You can quibble over the details, but when you boil it down, that is the essence of the argument. How even to process that?
In the old days, if you couldn’t afford to pay your workers in compliance with the law, chances were your company went out of business. Today when you can’t afford to pay your workers adequately you hire them as independent contractors through a “technology platform” and pay wages supplemented by just enough gamified incentives to keep workers coming back for more, like gamblers at the slot machines.
The true innovation of Uber was figuring out the labor model that Lyft and Juno and so many other gig companies adopted.
— Ali Griswold, in Oversharing: Lyft sues to avoid paying drivers a living wage
Use my marker 