Re: I is confused
Or, to put it another way, "Once you sign a contract with X as an employee you are strung up to their terms and conditions that can be very restrictive" - that's the point - if they're too restrictive then you ain't an independent contractor, no matter what the 'employer' tries to say.
And let's face it, independents tend to pay rather less in taxes than combined employer+employee - that's the loophole Uber are trying to wiggle through. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...