Not really. The whole idea of the 'gig economy' relied on independent contractors being independent entities liable for their own issues, and whom reap the rewards for their own work.
Part of the reward is a reputable account as a saleable asset. It's just like selling a company or passing it on to your children. If Joe's Handmans or Joes' Dogwalkers no longer includes "Joe" that's not supposed to be a scary situation, its part and parcel of why people work for themselves.
Now if indies aren't really expected to have owners rights, then they ought to get employee protections.
"Part of the reward is a reputable account as a saleable asset."
Your assessment is wrong. Joe's plumbing is a legally distinct entity that people understand is represented by a variety of different individuals.
An account on a gig site that represents that you are Joe Smith is different on the face of the matter because you are contractually liable for providing accurate info to potential clients and the company. They signed up for Joe not someone Joe vetted.
You breached the agreement under which you agreed to work with the company that is connecting you to work.
You misled the party hiring the company and if anything goes wrong and you let Bob Johnson masquerade as you have fun getting sued by the agreived party and reaping the bad press.
The company will ultimately delete the account when or if your FRAUD is detected meaning you will also be guilty of defrauding the buyer.
The person using the account is guilty of exceeding authorized access on cfaa you are potentially guilty of assisting them.
If you want the benefits of being a corporation you need to incorporate you cannot fraudulently sell your Joe Smith personal account on wag or Uber or what have you.
Well I see the 'gig economy' as large well funded organizations trying to get the benefits of hiring one-man LLCs and non-incorporated DBAs without any of the downsides.
If you want to hold someone to a 'name must match' standard, then I think you hire them personally so they are your employee. For someone using Uber, they theoretically do not care who the driver is so long as it is a 'valid driver' as per marketplace standards. To them, they are doing business only with Uber, not specifically with any individual driver, so any disputes are between Uber and driver or Uber and customer.
If something goes wrong, as you said it's between Uber and whomever they signed a contract with regardless of whom is driving the car at the time but that isn't a higher standard than any other B2B contract.
Personally, I would not mind laws put in place saying that if you want to higher 1 person for 1 job, and the name must match, then you have to classify them as at least a part-time employee.
If someone bought the company for a pittance just for the branding then it is something to worry about. Compare to a seller account on ebay; they're definitely nowhere near an employee but it would still be bad to disconnect reputation from the actual actor that got the reputation.
Part of the reward is a reputable account as a saleable asset. It's just like selling a company or passing it on to your children. If Joe's Handmans or Joes' Dogwalkers no longer includes "Joe" that's not supposed to be a scary situation, its part and parcel of why people work for themselves.
Now if indies aren't really expected to have owners rights, then they ought to get employee protections.