[sdenton4]

"some of the Uber drivers I meet are incredibly gritty."

That's exactly the point. There's a huge number of people bringing a hell of a lot of hustle to just keeping their head above water.

There was a brilliant blog post a couple years ago pointing out that perfect competition - from the perspective of the gig worker on the ground - is fundamentally dystopian. When you're providing a commoditized service (like driving a car) in perfect competition, you've got nowhere to go but working harder or smarter. Which quickly means that everyone in the market is working just as hard and smart, bringing maximum hustle (or, if you prefer, grit) just to hang on.