Apparently, they are literally going to be using psychological tricks to make their drivers work longer hours for more days for the same amount of money.
These tricks employ the same tried and true methods used by F2P games on mobile platforms, which includes setting arbitrary goals, achievements, special announcements, ect… Uber has stated that they will allow their drivers to disable these features, but it’s obvious that, when taking into account expenses for things like gas and upkeep, it will increase the chance that they wind up in a job that has a negative wage rather than a positive one.
I have to hand it to Uber though, it’s not easy to create a legal business model where the wages of your ‘workers’ are below that of slaves (when it was still around that is). It would likely be a better bet to start your own little driving service yourself (because even though you might not make a whole lot or have the fancy technology, you’ll still be making more).