Please read the court documents. The lawsuit alleges that Uber's agreement with drivers had them acting solely as a payment collection agency, or at least this was the drivers' understanding. Under this agreement, Uber's job was to accept the payment ("fare") from the passenger including tolls and taxes then pay the driver the fare minus their cut for processing (20% to 25% of the fare "based on delineated factors").
The lawsuit assumes that the driver and the passenger are the two parties to the transaction and Uber is just a processor. This flows directly from Uber's stance on employees vs contractors and on their stance of being a marketplace that merely connects drivers and passengers, although the lawsuit doesn't allege that (in fact it alleges the opposite re: employees).
This idea of "the driver accepted X and the passenger accepted Y and Uber gets the spread" is a red herring. The passenger pays Z, the driver is paid Z, and Uber is paid (0.2 to 0.25)Z by the driver. This is the agreement. This is how the drivers have read and understood their agreement with Uber and whatever hypothetical fantasy you can concoct about how the agreement is or how the transaction should happen in your mind is irrelevant.
Everyone in this thread has it backwards, assuming Uber owes the driver a percentage of the fare. The driver owes Uber a percentage of the fare. Uber is taking more than (0.2 to 0.25)Z is what the lawsuit alleges and is covering it up with a "sophisticated" approach to commit fraud.
I read the court documents and believe that you are correct. It was my fault for reading the secondary summary and not the primary source.[0]
Tangentially, I don't think the last sentence in your third paragraph is a fair characterization and, frankly, unhelpful to your argument. I wasn't purposefully "concocting a hypothetical fantasy." I misunderstood Uber's relationship with its drivers, which I should have done more research on, but a simple correction would have sufficed.
That changes Uber's position in the transaction. Uber pretends it is a payment processor. But this means Uber is buying the service from the driver, marking it up, and reselling it to the rider. This puts Uber much closer to being an employer.
The lawsuit assumes that the driver and the passenger are the two parties to the transaction and Uber is just a processor. This flows directly from Uber's stance on employees vs contractors and on their stance of being a marketplace that merely connects drivers and passengers, although the lawsuit doesn't allege that (in fact it alleges the opposite re: employees).
This idea of "the driver accepted X and the passenger accepted Y and Uber gets the spread" is a red herring. The passenger pays Z, the driver is paid Z, and Uber is paid (0.2 to 0.25)Z by the driver. This is the agreement. This is how the drivers have read and understood their agreement with Uber and whatever hypothetical fantasy you can concoct about how the agreement is or how the transaction should happen in your mind is irrelevant.
Everyone in this thread has it backwards, assuming Uber owes the driver a percentage of the fare. The driver owes Uber a percentage of the fare. Uber is taking more than (0.2 to 0.25)Z is what the lawsuit alleges and is covering it up with a "sophisticated" approach to commit fraud.