So perhaps my example was bad... I was just saying that I'd trust a driver more that has thousands of rides under their belt with what I would consider to be a good star rating, as opposed to a driver with what I would consider to be a bad star rating with much fewer rides completed. I don't know the thresholds as far as when the star ratings take effect and when they are deactivated, so as a consumer who knows little about the employer side of Uber, knowing how many rides a driver has completed is valuable to me.
I agree that seeing a good number of rides is a big plus. I don't know what the actual attrition rate is (I've seen 96% attrition in the first year thrown around on discussion boards, but I suspect that's way high). But certainly a driver with 1,000 rides or more has a good bit of experience. It also tells you they can't be too bad, or they wouldn't have lasted. If you see a BIG number of rides -- like 4,000-5,000 -- you can bet the farm that the driver does this full time, and has for some time. (I'm not sure that is a good thing, but...)
I will say one thing for rideshare driving experience -- it changes the way you drive! I've always been a competent driver, but it only took me about a month of rideshare driving to become MUCH more cautious. When you are driving a LOT, you see a LOT of stupidity on the road.
Uber also has a "driver profile" that you can look at which will tell you things like languages spoken, hometown, compliments from riders, badges (don't get me started on badges, lol!), a "fun fact", other experience, and "Why I drive." All of that info except the compliments and badges are entered into the profile by the driver, so take them with a touch of salt. And believe it or not, I have had a number of riders who actually took the time to read my profile.
*****
As far as the star ratings, here's how it goes with Uber. With Uber, they don't pay much attention to the first 100 rides. Generally, only 40-60% of riders even bother to do ratings...and that's a problem, because the riders who don't rate are the ones who were perfectly happy with their ride. If somebody's not happy, you can be sure they will do their rating.
Once an Uber driver has 100 rated rides, their rating needs to stay above 4.6. That's 92%, and an A in school, but it's borderline termination with Uber.
Uber counts the most recent 500 rated rides, so as your ride count grows older ratings drop off and are no longer counted. If a driver gets below 4.6, they get a warning to get their rating up (very difficult to do), and if their rating stays below 4.6 for another week or two, they are deactivated.
The driver is usually given an opportunity to take a customer service improvement course online (which the driver pays for), and if they successfully complete that, they are reinstated. However, few of those drivers stick. As I said above, you have to really work to get a low average rating and they don't change just because they claim to have watched some online "charm school" videos.
I'm not sure how Lyft does their ratings, because they are totally opaque about ratings. Uber gives us all the numbers and you can check the math; Lyft tells you nothing. The driver cannot see their rating on the driver app; it only comes in an email once a week and I usually don't even open that email.