[viraptor]

> Uber and Lyft are more than willing to leave all of California rather than stay and deal with the regulation.

Ok. And why is that bad? The office work / engineers will stay. If there's need for transport, the drivers will work for transport in other ways. If nobody wants to pay for better conditions of drivers, then we just exposed the VC funding as unsustainable in a long run - it would happen sooner or later.

[r29vzg2]

Why stop at Uber drivers? Why don’t the California regulators just regulate away all jobs that don’t pay a livable wage? Why don’t the California regulators just raise the minimum wage to $90k a year?

Like I mentioned in the post above, regulations don’t exist in a vacuum, just because you say something should be a certain way doesn’t mean it will be. There are costs, and Uber and Lyft have determined that it’s not economically feasible for them keep operating in California under those regulations.

If we’re ok with California regulators dictating what jobs should exist regardless of what the market can support, then this is the result.

[CodeWriter23]

> Why don’t the California regulators just regulate away all jobs that don’t pay a livable wage?

That’s what they did with AB5, and also decided to regulate lucrative freelance gigs while they were at it. The result however wasn’t that companies hired former contractors as employees; no they just farm all their freelance work to out of state freelancers.

[jacobush]

The other states should maybe follow suit.

[CodeWriter23]

Have you read the law? It’s about 100 words of code and thousands about exemptions to the code, and the exemptions all have their own specific boundaries, like a writer can freelance 35 articles per outlet. But not a cartoonist. That’s not a good law. If it were a computer program, we’d call it spaghetti code, kludge, dirty hack job (and be fired for writing it). And it creates unequal protection under the law based on choice of profession. I get that profession isn’t a protected class. But gender is, and as I’ve learned recently, wow a lot of moms take contractor gigs so they can have flexibility dividing their time between work and children.

[Talanes]

"Why don’t the California regulators just regulate away all jobs that don’t pay a livable wage?"

I'm down.

[ikiris]

"FINE< WHY NOT GO EVEN FURTHER AND REALLY HELP THE POOR?!?! IM SURE YOU'LL BE SORRY THEN!"

I never really understand some arguments with people who think most regulation is bad and not voted in blood.

[r29vzg2]

By removing all jobs that don’t pay a livable wage you essentially remove all jobs that low-skilled workers are working.

I don’t see how that would help the poor. Fighting poverty is done by giving the impoverished more opportunities, not less.

Simply put, regulating all jobs to pay a livable wage won’t make those jobs suddenly do so. It will instead make those jobs disappear, as the employer no longer making any money.

[viraptor]

> By removing all jobs that don’t pay a livable wage you essentially remove all jobs that low-skilled workers are working.

That's demonstrably not true as written. UK requires paying over living wage at 25yo and minimum wage before. The low-skilled jobs have not disappeared.

But think about what it really means as you wrote it: you don't think people doing low skill work deserve to not live in poverty. That is what living wage means. If we can't afford people to earn living wage as a default, it's a problem with general economy that needs to be addressed - if killing jobs that can't afford workers is a first step, it will have to happen at some point. (Ideally we'd have a different approach, maybe a UBI, or another highway network project, or something else)

[makomk]

The fact that low-skilled jobs haven't disappeared in the UK might have something to do with the legally-mandated "living wage" being about the same as California's current minimum wage.

[kyleee]

I doubt the person you are responding to believes that low skill workers deserve to live in poverty. I don't think that's a particulalry charitable interpretation

[manigandham]

Because most regulation is bad and not voted in blood.

Politicians, political interests, corruption, graft and many other factors influence legislation and most regulation has not had the intended consequences, often creating more problems than it solves.

[um_ya]

All the people fleeing California disagree with you

[ikiris]

This is not why we're fleeing.

[winkeltripel]

Is it cause you want to own a home one day? Or at least stop paying more rent each month than a mortgage in other states?

[XMPPwocky]

"There are costs, and Uber and Lyft have determined that it’s not economically feasible for them keep operating in California under those regulations."

Do you know that's the case, or do you just mean "that's what they said!" It's in their interest to say they just can't afford to treat their workers better- that they'll be forced to shut down- regardless of whether or not they can afford to.

[r29vzg2]

They were prepared to do it. It was set to go into effect and was going to it if wasn’t for the emergency stay order.

[XMPPwocky]

Is that something you know to be true, or something you heard from the companies?

Remember, there's a history of just this kind of stunt with these particular actors. So, personally, I'm very wary of taking their statements at face value!

[RandoHolmes]

You can imagine just these sorts of arguments being raised when things like the 40 hour work week was going into effect.

And yet, here we are, years later, with the 40 hour work week and companies somehow successfully surviving.

[unishark]

Or, according to the last poll I saw, here we are with an average work week of something like 47 hours in the US.

But we did ensure that workers at the low end aren't allowed the same flexibility as the higher paid employees, along with a nice demeaning time clock to punch every day.

[aetherson]

It's by no means clear that drivers for Uber/Lyft will have viable prospects in this scenario. These jobs did not exist pre-ride-sharing companies. It's not like all these drivers were driving cabs before.

[RandoHolmes]

> These jobs did not exist pre-ride-sharing companies.

Is it your contention that taxi's didn't exist pre-Uber? Or that Taxi's weren't jobs done by ordinary people?

I can tell you as someone who is over 40, I would regularly form relationships with Taxi drivers so that I could simply call them up and ask them if they'd be available on X day, X time, and if they could use the "special" rate, and the answer was yes. Where special rate meant paying just them and not the taxi company I met them through.

There is nothing special about Uber or Lyft, and if they leave California the existing Taxi company's will fill in the gap.

[aetherson]

My contention is that the number of people driving taxis pre-Uber was vastly less than the number of taxi drivers plus Uber drivers plus Lyft drivers, and the total number of rides-for-hire was vastly lower pre-Uber than post.

[syshum]

>> "special" rate,

Pretty sure that is illegal, if not it is unethical

> if they leave California the existing Taxi company's will fill in the gap.

Clearly there was a demand for something other than taxi's, while you seemed to like it, and did unethical things to get your rate lower. For most people they found the taxi service to be unappealing and over priced, Thus uber and lyft where born

[unishark]

In places like New York, the taxi medallion is only required for picking up people on the street. If the customer calls them up it is a different story, anyone can operate that way (so I don't see why a taxi driver can't do it too on their own time). This is why Uber can exist, regardless whether their drivers are employees or independent.

[syshum]

Does the driver own and maintain the car they are using for this moonlighting?

[RandoHolmes]

No one is saying that current laws aren't bullshit, they obviously are.

The point is that that if Uber goes away, it won't stop people from paying for rides.

It's a bit like claiming if Hershey's claimed that people would stop eating chocolate if they couldn't abuse their relationship with local governments to get water rights they have no business having.

Noooooooo, people will still like Chocolate, it's just that more "moral" companies will replace them.

If anything, the value of chocolate will go up and that's perfectly acceptable.

[RandoHolmes]

Why would it be unethical to cut out the middle man??

Oh nooo!?!?! How dare I hire that blogger directly, I'll go to jail/be fined for not going through a hiring agency!?!?!

You realize that stupid opinions exist, right?

[syshum]

Does the driver own and maintain the car they are using for this moonlighting?

Does the blogger have an exclusive agreement with the agency?

Is the blogger using agency resources to complete your work?

[RandoHolmes]

omg, you're so right!

The blogger had to be scouted by the agency, which used agency resources, therefore the blogger is totally liable for that risk!!!!!oneoneoneneoneshiftoneshiftoneshiftoneshiftone.

--

Imagine a world in which the risk is taken on by yourself and not others... but of course that's totes not possibru...

[viraptor]

The need for transport will not go away. The moment uber and Lyft leave, other companies will come in. There may not be 1:1 replacement of the drivers, but a lot can jump ship. Others? It will suck when it happens, but hopefully they can find other jobs. There's going to be quite a few office jobs for people with cab experience at companies trying to take over the market though.

[usaar333]

Why are the drivers driving for Uber and not say being Instacart shoppers where they can be employees?

[Hnaomyiph]

>if there is a need for transport, the drivers will work for transport in other ways This is incredibly unlikely in any imaginable way.

[ChrisLomont]

Wage floors push the most vulnerable out of the workforce. Is that bad?

[viraptor]

This would be the immediate effect today. An alternative description is "VC money supports the axe hanging over unprofitable uber jobs". The question is - does uber need to find a solution to this problem today or in X months?

This is going to happen one way or another.

[manigandham]

Uber is profitable in many markets and was approaching broad profitability this year before Covid.

[XMPPwocky]

If somebody is vulnerable, I'd say it seems like a very bad thing to make them work by threatening them with homelessness and poverty, enforced by men with guns.

So no, I don't think it is.

[unishark]

If most people want to help them, as apparently most people do (these laws need to get passed in a democracy, after all), why does that help need to be enforced by men with guns?

[whiddershins]

Yes. A sense of self determination is important to human functioning.