The indignation over this makes no sense. Sure it's aggressive, but Uber has to be in order to maintain their market position and keep growing.

As developers, we get recruited all the time, even while employed. The horror! This is a good problem for drivers to have. No one is forcing them to switch (or even stopping them from driving for multiple services concurrently). They will drive for a company as long as the offer is good.

These are competitors offering an essentially identical service, and apparently fighting over an important resource -- drivers -- so the moral outrage is absurd. This is the free market in action.

I'll say it: from everything I've seen over the years of Uber, I like their playbook. Call it whatever you want -- underhanded, blatant, political, amoral, spotlight-stealing, $linkbait_adjective. Most importantly, it is damn effective.