I'm not ignoring the cherry-picking issue. I, as a passenger, do not care. Straight up. I consider this supply and demand and market pricing doing what it's supposed to.
The tax medallion system was invented to solve such an oversupply problem. It led to times when it's impossible to get a taxi.
Practically speaking, this just isn't a problem you can solve because you're trying to limit supply. If Uber starts giving preferential treatment to full-time or more "senior" drivers, the part-timers will simply go somewhere else and use another ride-sharing app. If you get Lyft and the other little apps to go along with this scheme, well then it's collusion. The only legal alternative is government regulation and legislation and that's not likely to make anybody happy. You will probably find those that operate a fleet through Uber (and are thus de facto taxi companies) will likely support such measures because it will allow them to exercise greater control and have more predictability over their drivers.
The problem is surge pricing isn't solving the underlying problem (i.e, undersupply of drivers). Uber recently moved to a model where the driver bonuses are disconnected from the actual surge amount: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/09/uber-ly...
Presumably if surge was focused on maximizing completed trips, then the goal is to find a price that matches riders to drivers.
In reality, riders are more interested in riding than drivers are in driving (this is how we got into this situation in the first place). You can easily charge 2x surge without killing demand, but supply won't rise by the corresponding amount.
Uber found a way to take advantage of this - fixed bonuses to attract the same amount of supply as before, but now surge is an independent variable that they can fine-tune to demand.
Your ride quality isn't improving with surge pricing, it's just getting more expensive.
The tax medallion system was invented to solve such an oversupply problem. It led to times when it's impossible to get a taxi.
Practically speaking, this just isn't a problem you can solve because you're trying to limit supply. If Uber starts giving preferential treatment to full-time or more "senior" drivers, the part-timers will simply go somewhere else and use another ride-sharing app. If you get Lyft and the other little apps to go along with this scheme, well then it's collusion. The only legal alternative is government regulation and legislation and that's not likely to make anybody happy. You will probably find those that operate a fleet through Uber (and are thus de facto taxi companies) will likely support such measures because it will allow them to exercise greater control and have more predictability over their drivers.