Which is absolutely wrong. They're deciding, as a contractor, to not take jobs which are not worth their time. As a contractor, they're supposed to be able to do that without punishment. If Uber is doing this, it is a punishment.
There's some balance between punishment and keeping the rider experience pleasant. I don't want to wait 10 minutes to get matched because of nearby lurking Uber Black cars passing on my Uber X request.
If a driver ignores several requests in a row, they're clearly taking a break. It's a feature, not a punishment.
I wonder if surge is activated by a lack of drivers or a lack of drivers who accept rides. My initial thought was that it was based on the number of active drivers, so making a driver inactive would take the pricing higher for the remaining drivers.
