This gives the non-poor a convenient way of excusing themselves from any complicity in the situation. While poor people are not poor because rich people are rich, as communism presumes, in the case of taxi drivers, poor cab drivers are poor because rich managers, legislators and regulators have made them that way. People who manipulate and abuse their victims often despise them as well. It is a sort of sadism. This is also an element of laziness in all of this.
Bigotry excuses the bigots from the hard work of thinking and caring.
The remedies to this situation actually start by getting government out of the industry, not more involved. There is still a need for a legitimate independent contractor designation. If people accept the swindles companies like Xerox perpetrate, then that's their choice. Companies that abuse the independent contractor status do so primarily to evade laws and regulations that effectively mandate expenses, and restrictions on their activities. They have found it to be cheaper to twist the law out of all recognition than to challenge the law directly.