I'm not sure a middleman service is even really necessary. There's plenty of drivers right now driving for multiple services. The more services there are, the more competition there is for drivers' time, which means drivers have more leverage.
One could read Uber's insistence on canning drivers who turn down too many rides as an attempt to reduce this leverage, since the only way drivers can exercise it is to turn down Uber rides in order to drive for somebody else. Requiring them to accept a certain volume of Uber rides effectively ties them to Uber.
> There's plenty of drivers right now driving for multiple services. The more services there are, the more competition there is for drivers' time, which means drivers have more leverage.
We're gonna need an Uber for Ubers.
But of course a middleman is necessary - who's going to match customers and available drivers? But if drivers have the leverage, it could resemble more of an agent relationship.
Why haven't Uber/Lyft demanded exclusivity with drivers?
The services match customers and drivers; they just don't do so authoritatively. Instead, you have a sort of pseudo-auction going on for chunks of drivers' time. Each match from a service is essentially a bid. If there's only one bid, the driver takes it; if there's multiple bids, she chooses the one that best fits her circumstances and turns down the others.
> Why haven't Uber/Lyft demanded exclusivity with drivers?
That was my point above, it sounds like that is what Uber, at least, is trying to do. They want their drivers to be Uber drivers first and foremost, so they punish drivers who turn down too many Uber-proposed rides.
Of course, if that's the relationship they want to have with their drivers, it sort of calls into question how "independent" those independent-contractor drivers really are. If Uber wants drivers to only drive for Uber, they could always just hire them as full-time employees. That would cost them money, though, so instead they prefer to keep their drivers as contractors and just force them to behave like employees instead.
Best guess: Uber/Lyft can't demand exclusivity from their drivers without crossing a line clearly delineated by the IRS. Doing so would be considered an "inappropriate degree of control" and the drivers would no longer be considered independent contractors, but instead employees. Neither Uber nor Lyft would want that. Penalizing drivers that don't accept a high percentage of rides offered them is Uber's attempt to demand exclusivity without demanding it.
It's state-by-state/region-by-region. IIRC, California specifically disallows non-compete clauses in general [citation needed]. Seattle outlaws driving for more than one service.
I'm pretty sure it's state-by-state as well as federal. That is, you need to follow both federal (IRS) rules and state rules to ensure your workers are independent contractors and not employees.
One could read Uber's insistence on canning drivers who turn down too many rides as an attempt to reduce this leverage, since the only way drivers can exercise it is to turn down Uber rides in order to drive for somebody else. Requiring them to accept a certain volume of Uber rides effectively ties them to Uber.