If Lyft had waived this complaint and continued contracting out this driver, the New York Times could just as well write an identically inflammatory piece, about how Lyft were endangering customers' lives. How they—I'm sure they'd write—knew about, and shockingly ignored, reports that their contractors were committing crimes and violating traffic safety laws. How they willfully and recklessly employed substandard contractors out of greed for more profit.

I'm not saying I prefer one narrative or the other; I reject the entire premise of this style of writing. I despise the New York Times. I can't stand the one-sided, outrage-oriented story writing this OP exemplifies, where there's only correct answer, and you're being railroaded into it and you should follow your emotions and cortisol explosions. I don't think they even belong on HN when they write like this—it's the opposite of curiosity-oriented writing.

But because the countries laws benefit the excessively rich, and the poor peoples' hard work to make the rich richer, means that these people have 0 protections whatsoever.

They are the second lowest economic class, the "can't even get W2 work". The lowest is 'homeless', who are already considered thrown away, societally speaking.

The deactivation is a different story, however.

Only after a NYT reporter started poking around, of course. How many others don’t have that going for them?