Okay, you're at home and you want to be downtown. Open the app, wash the dishes from last night, take out the trash, by then someone near you wants a ride downtown. You get paid, and then you're downtown where you can get paid again right away.
But that doesn't make any sense. You're in some residential area, it's rush hour, you need to get into the downtown where the action is, and so does everybody else. There isn't one person who also wants to go where you're going? Unlikely.
Ironically, it's demands for minimum compensation that make efficiencies like that go away. Maybe there is some demand for that but not a ton, and only at low prices. Low is better than none when you're making the trip either way. But if you're prohibited from working for less than a threshold amount of money, then you get nothing.
Okay, you're at home and you want to be downtown. Open the app, wash the dishes from last night, take out the trash, by then someone near you wants a ride downtown. You get paid, and then you're downtown where you can get paid again right away.