> For example, you can't take into account vehicle depreciation, because the vehicle depreciates regardless of whether or not you drive for Uber/Lyft.
For taxable depreciation, which is generally equally spaced over a fixed time, ok. For actual economic depreiciation, as in the difference in what you paid vs what you could sell it for, time and mileage are both factors, extra miles from driving for hire reduce the sales value of the vehicle.
> time and mileage are both factors, extra miles from driving for hire reduce the sales value of the vehicle.
Yes, but time impacts depreciation far more than mileage, and the time-based portion of depreciation is a sunk cost. You can definitely argue that drivers accrue more miles driving for Uber/Lyft, and that they should be reimbursed for that, and I would agree with you. However...
Compare the Bluebook value of a typical car that might be used for this kind of work at ten years old with 120k miles (12k/year) vs. ten years old with a million miles (100k/year). The difference will end up being around $2500, because after ten years the car will be worth hardly any more than that no matter how many miles it has on it, and it can't lose more than 100% of its value due to higher mileage. ~$2500 amortized over 880k additional miles is <0.003/mile.
A 2016 Camry with 60,000 miles is worth about $5000 more than a 2016 Camry with 500,000 miles, which works out to about ~$.01/mile of depreciation.
So in a regime where drivers are compensated for the mileage-based component of the vehicle depreciation, and if the average number of miles per trip is, say 10 miles, you're looking at drivers earning about 10 cents more, per trip.
For taxable depreciation, which is generally equally spaced over a fixed time, ok. For actual economic depreiciation, as in the difference in what you paid vs what you could sell it for, time and mileage are both factors, extra miles from driving for hire reduce the sales value of the vehicle.