If this outcome is a surprise to you, you have not been paying attention. Managers and Owners dream of reducing wages every single night. Every penny they aren't paying you is a penny they keep, and they, for some reason, think they are rightfully entitled to every penny, while you are a brat for feeling entitled to even a few pennies.

More importantly, if your boss doesn't think like that, you can expect his boss to replace him with a manager that DOES.

This downward force on labor prices is basically the entire point of the gig economy, and even youtubers whose only formal training is in how to write a high school essay figured this out.

For this reason, there is institutional pressure to turn anything they can into gig economies. If you don't have empathy for the uber drivers who sleep in their car to be able to make as many rides as they can and still somehow end up below minimum wage, don't worry, they'll come for you soon. And when they've made the gig economy literally the only gig in town, it doesn't matter how savvy you think you are at "negotiation", you will get fucked too.

Go read up on your labor rights history. None of what we have is a default, and the "haves" HATE it.