One question to ask here is why TaskRabbit and Uber and Handy are going so close to the employee/contractor problem in the first place: why, if the risk is so dire and the issue so well-known (which it is, there's been articles occasionally for years now, and most critical articles or pieces will venture the observation that their contractors are really employees) they are putting in place all those requirements and rules for their 'contractors'? Why aren't they pure intermediaries and marketplaces for the contractors & customers?
This issue reminds me a lot of Coase's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm problem/paradox - if markets are so efficient and optimal, why do large corporations exist and operate internally by non-market mechanisms? The usual answer is friction or transaction costs, but the whole point of things like Uber or TaskRabbit is that the Internet and smartphones hugely reduce these costs...
1) cost : contractors without work are free. No insurance (not even with ObamaCare). No providing infrastructure. No nothing ...
2) risk : contractor fucks up, contractor is legally responsible. Employee fucks up, firm is reponsible.
3) Ease of firing and the resulting pressure that can be applied to employees. Contractors don't even have to be fired to be fired.
4) Customer/payment risk. Suppose a customer doesn't pay. In the case of an employee, the employer has to pay the employee and the infrastructure. In the case of a contractor, the contractor is screwed (in some cases they actually have to pay transaction costs even if the customer doesn't pay)
None of that explains the paradox: why contractors aren't superior in general and why they're trying to turn contractors into quasi-employees, subject to centralized non-market control.
This issue reminds me a lot of Coase's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm problem/paradox - if markets are so efficient and optimal, why do large corporations exist and operate internally by non-market mechanisms? The usual answer is friction or transaction costs, but the whole point of things like Uber or TaskRabbit is that the Internet and smartphones hugely reduce these costs...