And if prices are high, customers will seek alternatives. So it could backfire.
Also, this practice is illegal as it amounts to price fixing/collision. These are all independent businesses conspiring to raise prices. These aren’t employees of the same company – they are independent contractors which means they are separate businuess entities from each other which means they are committing a crime.
Collusion is a crime and that’s exactly what these separate business entities (who happen to have Uber as a customer) are doing.
To the down voters.. is this not collusion? We are all welcome to our own opinions, but facts are what they are: businesses conspiring to force prices higher is the very diffenition of collusion. The size of the entity makes no difference under the law.
I'm not a downvoter, but I see your analysis as extremely uncharitable to drivers. If bringing down the weight of the justice system on individual drivers is a logical consequence of structuring rideshare as individual businesses, that argues for reclassifying them as employees.
EDIT: Full disclosure -- I drive for Lyft part-time. I have not participated in the gaming described in this article.
Though I imagine it wouldn't be hard for Uber to implement some basic security to thwart it.