You deceptively omit parts of the paragraphs you quote:

> Roman slaves could hold property which, despite the fact that it belonged to their masters, they were allowed to use as if it were their own.[58] Skilled or educated slaves were allowed to earn their own money, and might hope to save enough to buy their freedom.[59][60] Such slaves were often freed by the terms of their master's will, or for services rendered. A notable example of a high-status slave was Tiro, the secretary of Cicero. Tiro was freed before his master's death, and was successful enough to retire on his own country estate, where he died at the age of 99.[61][62][63] However, the master could arrange that slaves would only have enough money to buy their freedom when they were too old to work. They could then use the money to buy a new young slave while the old slave, unable to work, would be forced to rely on charity to stay alive.

The opportunity to buy one's way to freedom was not the norm, and typically only skilled or educated slaves could aspire to do this. And, as the article mentioned, this could take a very long amount of time and its only something that skilled or educated slaves might aspire to achieve.

> Although in general freed slaves could become citizens, with the right to vote if they were male, those categorized as dediticii suffered permanent disbarment from citizenship. The dediticii were mainly slaves whose masters had felt compelled to punish them for serious misconduct by placing them in chains, branding them, torturing them to confess a crime, imprisoning them or sending them involuntarily to a gladiatorial school (ludus), or condemning them to fight with gladiator or wild beasts (their subsequent status was obviously a concern only to those who survived). Dediticii were regarded as a threat to society, regardless of whether their master's punishments had been justified, and if they came within a hundred miles of Rome, they were subject to reenslavement.

First of all, this only applies if the slave was freed which is up to the discretion of their master. Also, I wrote an essay on Roman slavery and the patterns of slavery evolved over the course of Rome's roughly millennium long existence. Some periods saw reduced or even eliminated paths for slaves to become free let along citizens. Slaves in the Roman Empire varied as far as their conditions. Educated slaves might lead decent lives, but on the whole slaves are on the lowest rungs of society and did not even remotely have the kinds of worker protections we have today.

Middle Eastern soldier-slaves aren't really slaves as Westerners understand the term. They were effectively a military caste. In fact, the article even says this in its opening section, "The most enduring Mamluk realm was the knightly military caste in Egypt in the Middle Ages, which developed from the ranks of slave soldiers."

> And yes. I am personally convinced that bringing poor people and immigrants with limited citizenship rights into perpetuating economic relation where they cannot make economic progress and mostly accumulate debt and obligations with limited social benefits is modern version of serfdom.

These companies don't set immigration policy so I'm not sure what you're trying to say in this paragraph. And besides, many citizens also drive for these companies. And most importantly, if they decide that there are better opportunities than Uber and Lyft they are free to take those opportunities. This isn't serfdom at all, it's objectively wrong to call it that. The defining feature of serfdom and slavery is that the workers do not have agency to decide their form of employment. Uber and Lyft drivers do. If a serf thinks they can make more money as a craftsman instead of as a farmer they are not allowed to change their jobs because they're a serf. If an Uber or Lyft driver decides they can make more money working the checkout counter at Safeway they have the agency to take up that opportunity because they're not slaves or serfs. Calling Uber and Lyft the "modern version of serfdom" either demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of these terms on your part, of it's a bald faced lie.

The point remains, comparing Uber and Lyft drivers to slaves is absolutely inane.