I have been talking to Ola / UBer / lyft drivers in India and US whenever I use them on their earnings, business model etc.

They do service to the aggregator and the balance is in favour of the aggregator. Most of them don’t take in to account depreciation or replacement cost in their calculations. Nor do they compare earnings ( with out depreciation ) with any other profession for similar hours of working. A Walmart employee is supposed to be paid poorly I am told. But Uber drivers earn lower on a per hour basis.

of course the biggest plus is the flexibility they get. I presume that is true of GIG working as a concept

I know of a call driver model in Chennai which is more egalitarian . The aggregator charges a fixed sum per month to cover his costs as a subscription and paid by the call driver irrespective of his earning. Some drivers who build reputation over time and customers are willing to pay more.

Hopefully a similar model will emerge for share taxi service and disrupt Ola or Uber models.

ps I understand there are some pilots being tried on subscription model

Did you mean disheartening state of affairs?

I feel that there is a definite need for regulatory intervention to ensure well being and income for the gig workers and small farmers and so on. However, the regulatory changes cannot be sudden to render many of these job creating businesses unviable overnight. The biggest danger here is short-sighted impatience on the part of any interest group fuelled by political motives.