Good point. The amount of downtime definitely depends on local market conditions. For instance if you go online at 3AM in Tracy, CA, you might have way lower utilization than someone at 6pm in downtown San Francisco.
I see your point about locking people out of access once they get past a certain number of hours. I think there are two reasons why this is probably not realistic. (1) the hourly count is over a quarterly basis, so harder to track. If a user has 25 engaged hours in week 1, why lock the app if week 2 or 3 the user may have 0 engaged hours? (2) the apps commonly have "bonuses" for hitting certain trip count goals, and you don't see apps trying to lock users out before they hit that goal.
However, Uber has put out a proposal asking governments to establish a "benefits fund" that all gig-companies are required to deposit into, on an hourly basis. That way someone working 5 hours on one app and 20 hours on a second would get benefits partially paid from both companies, without an incentive for any company to shirk their duties.
See the following link, under page 12 - "we want to contribute to funds that workers can individually direct toward the benefits that matter most to them. We are asking states to require our industry to accrue such funds":
I see your point about locking people out of access once they get past a certain number of hours. I think there are two reasons why this is probably not realistic. (1) the hourly count is over a quarterly basis, so harder to track. If a user has 25 engaged hours in week 1, why lock the app if week 2 or 3 the user may have 0 engaged hours? (2) the apps commonly have "bonuses" for hitting certain trip count goals, and you don't see apps trying to lock users out before they hit that goal.
However, Uber has put out a proposal asking governments to establish a "benefits fund" that all gig-companies are required to deposit into, on an hourly basis. That way someone working 5 hours on one app and 20 hours on a second would get benefits partially paid from both companies, without an incentive for any company to shirk their duties.
See the following link, under page 12 - "we want to contribute to funds that workers can individually direct toward the benefits that matter most to them. We are asking states to require our industry to accrue such funds":
https://ubernewsroomapi.10upcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/...