[toomuchtodo]

So your argument is allow economic abuse instead of regulating against it? No thank you. I like regulation; with it, we get a better society, not Mad Max Race To The Bottom driven by apathetic consumers and psychopathic businesses.

EDIT: I do see the problem, and still believe regulation is the answer (in this case, California legislation [1]).

"If signed into law, the legislation will codify a landmark April 2018 California Supreme Court ruling, which introduced a three-part test to determine which workers businesses can reasonably classify as independent contractors and which must be treated as genuine employees. Workers considered employees are entitled to key labor protections and benefits—such as a minimum wage, overtime pay, and protections under antidiscrimination laws—which many gig-economy companies have long resisted."

This will decapitate gig economy companies in California.

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/california-lawmakers-move-protec...

[jstarfish]

No, I'm for regulation, but Uber drivers themselves are actually the problem here.

We had a regulated industry. Its labor force had collective bargaining power. Its labor pool was capped to limit surplus labor and everyone could get paid fairly.

Uber came along, organized a bunch of scabs willing to work for pennies to undermine all that, devalued the labor the existing industry provided and now those scabs are complaining they're not paid enough.

Do you not see the problem with this?

[jstarfish]

I think you get my point and I do get yours. I don't believe in exploitation and support efforts to mitigate it.

One negative outcome of that particular regulation will be the games that start getting played to beat around that three-part test, like Walmart delegating hours just a few short of qualifying employees for benefits. We've seen this play out before and I have my doubts about its effectiveness.