I suppose the words "pyramid scheme" has been mentioned before... hah, you gotta love the way technology does it, shall we call it Pyramid Scheme 2.0? Promise everyone profits, investors and workers alike, but scam the workers, and maybe there'll be profit for the investors, somewhere in the future.
It's more like a Ponzi scheme than a Pyramid scheme.
For investors, the promise of profitability is continually just over the horizon, as long as you keep investing money. Everyone can see the company is potentially very profitable, but nobody can see a route there.
Though for the drivers, it looks a lot like a multi-level marketing scheme. Be your own boss, choose your own hours, work hard and you will be rich.
The Uber model is anti-econonmy-of-scale. It is a non scalable human wave approach.