I didn't say they think it's the best of all possible worlds. I said they think it's the best option available to them.
Making that particular relationship they've chosen to enter illegal, because you think it is not sufficiently lucrative for them, is not going to help them. The other options on the market are not going to improve by virtue of low pay options being made illegal.
Every price level, including wages, is driven by supply and demand. Impositions like the kind you're advocating cannot possibly provide more benefit than harm, because they do not shift the demand curve to the right through an increase in the aggregate demand for labour. Only increases in productivity can do that.
>If they were given the option to do something else -- say, work as high-paid software engineers -- they'd obviously choose not to, and continue driving, because they've rationally evaluated the plethora of fulfilling career options available to them and settled on driving for Uber as the one which brings them the greatest overall happiness.
This is an extreme strawman. I never said they wouldn't exploit a better option if one were available. I said the best option available is the one they took, and making it illegal is not going make better options appear.
>Or perhaps they live in an economic system structured to disadvantage large numbers of people and leave them without many
I don't see any evidence that the economic system is designed through a conspiracy to disadvantage them. Market institutions like private property rights have facilitated a massive increase in wages for the typical person over the last 400 years. What you're advocating will slow wage growth. In fact, like the link I provided shows, the type of occupational and business licensing you advocate for is a major cause of growing income disparity. It has exactly the opposite effect of what you intend.
>and they chose low-paying jobs (sorry, "independent contracting arrangements") with poor work conditions, thus making it entirely their fault and no-one else's.
You're not helping them by making that option unavailable to them. It's a misguided paternalistic mindset to think that you are.
By all means offer them the training so they can work as a highly paid software engineer (if you can), but don't take away their existing options out of a belief that you know better than them what's in their own best interest.