https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEXJmNj6SPk

"taking away their ability to set prices for themselves" - nope, not really.  If I run a store I can price my milk anywhere I want.  I can charge $1, $2, or $3 a gallon for it.  It's my choice.  And if someone comes into my store willing to pay $1 for a gallon, it's MY CHOICE as a store owner whether or not to sell at that price.  I always have the power to say "I won't sell it at that price".

When Uber gets a request for a ride, it sends out offers to all the Uber drivers in the area that are available, with an offer for compensation.  Nobody is forcing any of those drivers to take the work for the price offered.  ANY of them can say "no thanks".  If you see that route and decide it's worth $10 to you, and Uber is only offering you $8 for it, you absolutely HAVE the ability to set the price yourself.  You just did, you set it at $10, and decline the offer of $8.  Or you can reconsider, maybe "lower your standards" or whatever, and accept the $8. But the choice is ALWAYS yours.

In addition to offering different amounts to different drivers, Uber will also sit back and wait 30 seconds, and if nobody has accepted the offer they got, Uber's algorithms will reconsider, and increase the offer a little bit.  Drivers receive the new higher offer.  If someone decides "ok, that new offer is worth it for me", then we have a deal.  Of course that could also be declined, and Uber will send out a series of increasing offers until it finds a driver with the "most competitive price" for Uber.  This ends if after a certain number of offers there are no takers.  In that case, none of the available drivers feel its worth it for their time/gas/etc, and the rider is notified no one is available.  Uber does this when it gets to a point where they don't meet some "minimum margin" set internally.

This is free market at work.  The "problem" here has nothing to do with Uber, the "problem" is that Uber is "pitting drivers against each other", and basically probing with offers to see who's the "most desperate for the job" / who's willing to do the same job for the least pay.  It's a bit like an auction in that regard - there's an object for sale and a central person is bringing together potential buyers (buyers of the driver's time) and auctioning off the job. (tho for the lowest bid)  If someone else takes the ride before it rises to a point where you want it, it's not Uber's fault.  You've just been "out-bid" by another driver.  Blaming the auction house because you lost an auction is pretty childish and short-sighted.

Of course this "algorithm" can also probe around with the offers, looking at things like your history as a driver and how eager you have been in the past to accept a first offer.  They may also make slightly higher offers to new drivers, or to drivers that for some reason they want to get more involved.  Maybe you tend to be in a lucrative location that Uber makes more money in, and even though that ride that just came up isn't IN that area, they still want to incentivize you to stay on the job with them so they toss you a carrot because you're slightly more valuable as a driver.  There's lots of reasons for them to make "micro-adjustments" to the prices they would normally offer for that ride, as long as it's not targeting a "protected class" like gender/race/religion/etc.

And they can't just offer a wide span of prices all the time, because that would cause drivers that "want more" for their time to leave.  So they limit the amount of variation in the prices, and even occasionally give someone a little larger offer than the metrics say they should, to keep their pool of drivers large and flexible.  The amount of variation is going to vary between companies, depending on their "strategy", which is why Lyft has a different variation than Uber.

This is ALL a big "numbers game", by bean counters (likely influenced by bean counters doing deep analysis and probably a bit of AI) in an attempt to maximize their profit.  But not just today, not this week or month or even year.  If they're smart they're thinking long-term, and burning your workforce is probably going to ruin you in the long-term, so they are looking to ride in that "sweet spot" where it's best for the company in the long term.  It won't be the best for the employees in the long-term, but it wont' be the worst either.  In a way, the employees of any modern capitalist company are going to see their employees as a component of their revenue.  They're not in business for their employees, they're in business for themselves.  The best you can hope for as an employee is to find a job where the employee's best interests align well with the company's best interests. (though it seems those sorts of jobs are getting harder and harder to find nowadays)  Its foolish to blame a company for how this is working out for you.

At the end of the day, if you're not making as much as you want to at a job like this, it's got nothing to do with the company, and everything to do with the rest of the employees you're competing against for work.  If you don't think you're making what you're worth, find another company that has an employee pool filled with a greater majority of people that value their time more, so that the "free market competition" within the business produces better results for you.

Oh and as a side-note, if you asa driver truly want to "set your price, that CAN be done, but it WILL NOT END WELL FOR YOU or the company.  Imagine when a rider puts in a request, it sends the request to all drivers in the area, and says basically "how much do you want for this job?"  Everyone punches in a number, and then Uber gives the ride to the one driver with the lowest bid.  Besides slowing the process down, drivers that "don't know what they're worth" are going to put in lower bids.  Drivers that put in reasonable bids won't get the jobs, and will leave the platform.  This will dramatically reduce drivers that are available, leaving only the ones with less business sense.  Uber will initially benefit from this, but the drivers they are left with will be making less money than they should, and Uber will be unable to attract more drivers, except those that are desperate for work and will work below the average pay.  This will affect the quality of the rides - vehicles that are poorly maintained by broke drivers.  Uber will start losing the paying customers.  And things will start to spiral down.  What's effectively happened is control over pricing has been taken away from the bean counters (who are, admittedly, trying to maximize their profit, as well as grow the business) and turned it over to people that are desperate for work. (who will work for much lower pay, in addition to shrinking the business)  This simply can't end well for the drivers, OR the business.  Someone has to set the points, but you don't want the drivers that are financial idiots stetting it too low, or the drivers that are greedy bastards stetting it too high.  This "bidding" method basically averages the two out, and is probably the best system possible in a free market. Sure, there's a finger on the scales, but at least that finger is connected to a hand that is very much interested in making sure the business stays heathy and lives a long life, which benefits the drivers in the long term.

Sorry for the long post, but it's a complicated topic and there's a lot of cause-and-effect (both subtle and gross) at work here, and a lot of people clearly aren't seeing how a lot of it works and interacts.