People forget the past all too easily. It took a lot to get us the protections we have today. Giving them up so easily is a mistake.
For those thinking this is overreach and stifling innovation you need to look back at history and realise the same thing could be said about many commonplace workers rights that you take for granted now.
My wife describes engineers as 'smartdumb'.
We're super smart at figuring out technical solutions that enable things like social media, ridesharing and short term rentals.
But we're either willfully ignorant or just plain dumb about the second order effects on society.
And you know what you call it when people discuss the social good? Politics.
That very thing that coincidentally we're not supposed to talk about on this site.
Also interesting that basically anyone saying anything mildly critical of capitalism is getting downvoted without much response
Carefully regulated capitalism should do fine. This is obviously not easy to achieve.
What I think is happening as far as the downvotes is not dependent on the person's field but rather their class or group identification as well as a certain portion of people who are actually worried about maintaining the 'independent' part of this stuff (though that is misguided for things like Uber).
Some people don't understand the perspective or plight of gig workers because they identify as being part of a different segment of society, which precludes them from taking on that other perspective.
You're attributing lack of benefits to work situations and employement agreements instead of unjust government distortion in markets and inefficient regulation.