In discussions like these I like to start from a basic premise: people aren't stupid.
It's obvious to the drivers that if they don't take trips, then they don't make money. Clearly then, they've decided that below a certain dollar amount, it make more sense to them to play computer games than take a fare. How they arrived at that conclusion, I don't know. But I have faith that it made sense to them.
I do very small software projects for people I find online. I have a minimum fee. If I take on projects below that minimum, I'd have more work, but I have determined that it's in my best interest to hold out for that minimum rate. If this means that I don't make money on that side gig a particular day or week, so be it. I have my reasons for doing that and they won't necessarily make sense to anyone looking in from the outside.
It's trivial to find out why looking at driver's posts online:
There's a minimum time cost to them for each ride or delivery. There's the time you spend finding out exactly where the person is, there can be a delay between jobs, there's delays when picking up an order.
Someone who drives 10 miles for one job will spend much less time than someone who drives 1 mile for 10 jobs. And since they have X units of time to spend in the app, they'll start making less and less per mile driven.
It's easy enough to see how, at some point, they start to get paid so little that it's in their best interest to just not drive and spend the gas and their effort
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Here's a severe case showing someone go through that exact experience:
> I accepted the pick-up and app informed me that the customer was 13 miles away I drove there[...] pressed my App for the drop-off Destination [...] and saw that drop-off was 1 mile away
> Total time of trip, back and forth, 45 to 50 minutes and 29 miles , and I earned $8 dollars
> So, after thinking about it, I have decided to ‘decline’ all trips that are more than 10 miles away from me and do not say that it is gonna be a ‘long trip’
