I totally agree with the comments saying that Uber and others are trying to get employee-level control over people with contractor-level benefits. The guys who drive Uber for 20,30, even 50 hours a week are definitely employees and should be treated as such.
However I'd like to throw in my own personal anecdote. I am a full time software engineer but I am signed up as a Postmates bike deliveryperson on the side. I do ~3 hours of work on Saturdays and Sundays because it's basically paid exercise and I like to explore. I am clearly NOT an employee of Postmates. If new laws are passed, would people like me just be told to go away? I think one of the coolest things about the gig economy is that there are a lot of people like me just taking on flexible employment because it's such an easy way to use idle cycles (no pun intended).
I delivered papers once a week as a kid. I got paid 3 cents per copy by the company. I worked approximately 2 hours per week. I was officially an employee. It didn't break the company to classify me as an employee. It wouldn't break Postmates to have you classified as an employee either.
I'm not sure how long ago you delivered papers, but I delivered papers in the 90's as a kid and was an independent contractor.
I worked for a paper in the 2000's, not as a deliverer, but their deliverer's were all independent contractors.
These were two different papers at two different parts of the country, I'm sure not all papers handle it this way but I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case for most.
However I'd like to throw in my own personal anecdote. I am a full time software engineer but I am signed up as a Postmates bike deliveryperson on the side. I do ~3 hours of work on Saturdays and Sundays because it's basically paid exercise and I like to explore. I am clearly NOT an employee of Postmates. If new laws are passed, would people like me just be told to go away? I think one of the coolest things about the gig economy is that there are a lot of people like me just taking on flexible employment because it's such an easy way to use idle cycles (no pun intended).