But there aren't any fallacies in the GP's argument. And it is quite directly making an absurd and unsupportable statement regarding indentured servitude for a job opportunity that is undeniably no strings attached.
Indentured Servitude: ‘Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an "indenture", may be entered voluntarily for eventual compensation or debt repayment, or it may be imposed as a judicial punishment.’
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude
As for Uber drivers: it’s pretty hard to be an independent contractor without entering into a contract.
It is the polar opposite of an arrangement which demands continuing performance. It's even less restrictive than a typical employer-employee relationship.
GP: But indentured servants enter willfully into their contracts, and indentured servitude is exploitative. So how is the willful nature of gig work relevant to the question of whether it is exploitative?
You: GP has equated gig work with indentured servitude, and they are in no way comparable, because gig workers can quit whenever they choose.
Me: GP did not equate indentured servitude and gig work, they used indentured servitude as a tool to show the flawed reasoning of GGP.
You: Gig work is nothing like indentured servitude, because gig workers can quit whenever they want, and indentured servants can’t.
Do you see the problem here?
When I buy a stick of gum I'm also entering into a contract (of sale). It would be disingenuous and dishonest of me to claim that the 7-11 clerk is exploiting me in ways similar to indentured servitude (or I, him) simply because both scenarios involve a contract.
The relevant aspect is whether the contract binds someone such that they cannot escape. Uber does not do this, period. To suggest otherwise is absurd.
There is a very small chance that the reason it’s difficult to understand is that you’re suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning, a stroke, or some other medical issue, so to the extent that you can easily eliminate those as possibilities, you should.
I can certainly enter into a legal contract that requires someone to eat my feces for breakfast, but I bet you if I tried to enforce such a contract I'd be told the law won't do it.
This here is why the idea of being able to walk away from a contract doesn't make the contract valid or legal, nor does it prevent the contract from being exploitative.
Find another reason why it's not exploitative, because them being able to legally walk away from it isn't enough. Not even the LAW uses such a lax definition.
Do you know why I still use taxi's over uber?
Because when I hop in a taxi and tell the driver I'll be inside for a few minutes but I'd like a ride back and they can just keep the meter running, they give me a thumbs up and do exactly that.
When I do this for an uber driver they tell me they're not _ALLOWED_ to do that and if I need a ride back I must call another uber and wait.
And then I hear these companies talk about how these uber drivers really and truly have freedom to do what they want and they're totally not taking advantage of the tax code and pushing all the risk onto the uber driver (wear and tear on the vehicle, insurance, increased risk of car wrecks, etc)!
Yeah, I call bullshit. They're starting to go after these companies because they take advantage of people who are taking long term risk for short term gain (money now vs repairs on the vehicle later). You know how Taxi companies do it? If you drive your own vehicle they get a small % of the fare for the dispatch service. If you don't want to drive your vehicle you can drive theirs and they take a larger % of the fare, but you aren't risking your own vehicle.
Now tell me again how uber is somehow better for their workers?
I refuse to use uber because Taxi drivers are human, uber drivers are an extension of ubers body.
This is so fallacious that it almost doesn't parse as English (largely imo because it's been fluffed up to hide the utterly commonplace "so you're saying everything is wrong unless it's perfect?" strawman.)
Regardless, feel free to ignore my strawman and tell me the real argument.
I think maybe you've misunderstood steelmanning. It's not about taking an argument to the absolute extreme, it's about constructing the most convincing and effective form of the argument.
That doesn’t mean “any sub-utopic framework they have to participate in is immoral”, it just means this particular one is.
The only change is that Uber grew the market and popularized hiring cars, and the state of California decided to start attacking its own tech industry.
There's a lot of hypocrisy here. If the state truly had worker's interests at heart it would be looking at the farming industry, not ridesharing.
A tragically myopic argument to make.