[techsupporter]

> I’m going to end this by noting as I read through the S-1, you can’t help but develop a grudging respect for Tony Xu and his team. It’s the ultimate encapsulation of don’t hate the player, hate the game.

To use a meme, "por que no los dos?"

I hate both the player and the game. No one ordered Mr Xu to get into this business; there's no requirement that he abuse the living shit out of his workers and sell them up the river by helping pass prop 22. At every step in the decision process, he or people he hired and gave instructions to voluntarily made these decisions. From the pay scale to the inclusion of binding arbitration, they own every single one of those choices.

Along the same lines, we own not making the changes we claim to want, while wolfing down our ghost kitchen burritos with subsidized delivery. California voters absolutely own voting for proposition 22, and signing the petition to get it on the ballot. We're not reforming our labor laws to give some people the flexibility they want while not leaving everyone as an unrestricted free agent. We don't separate health care from employment. We gab about it, but little changes, and certainly not at the rate of the people exploiting those pressure points. As someone once told Captain Picard, "you talk and you talk, but you have no guramba."

And now, with COVID, we're watching our economy cleave into the starkest case of haves and have-nots in my lifetime. That split won't be permanent, but fixing it is going to happen when we least expect it and is going to be messy and painful.

[HNthrow22]

'California voters absolutely own voting for proposition 22'

To be fair they set a new record for money spent on supporting a ballot measure in state history ($225m) and it still only passed with 58%.

If you divide the $225m spent lobbying this by the 9,339,069 votes for it comes out to $23.98 per vote.

https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_22,_App-Based... https://www.latimes.com/projects/props-california-2020-elect...

[unishark]

58 percent (closer to 59 percent in fact) can only be described as a blowout. Maybe if they spent less it would simply have been closer.

Meg Whitman spent something like $180M for the governor's race, and still lost badly. You can't sell voters something they don't want to buy.

[SilasX]

Okay but the less of a difference (you're claiming) it made, the more (it means) they had to pay per vote. So like, if it was going to be 55% in-favor regardless, then they only "bought" 3% of voters, which would mean having paid $23.98 * 58/(58-55)= $463/vote.

[xenihn]

>And now, with COVID, we're watching our economy cleave into the starkest case of haves and have-nots in my lifetime.

I am really sad about this. It's going to be a literal depression for a significant portion of American society.

[remote_phone]

Prop 22 was not the way to do it. I’m glad that terrible law was correctly voted down by California. It is clear that people want flexibility. The fact that Prop 22 had to have over 100 exclusions because it broke so many other industries reeks of bad code smell. It was a badly written law and badly written laws need to be reversed. In the end, drivers got better protections and guarantees but remained flexible and independent.

[cmeacham98]

Maybe you're not aware, but prop 22 actually passed and helps gig economy companies like DoorDash.

[thaumasiotes]

remote_phone's comment suggests that he is referring to AB 5, not proposition 22. Aside from the confusion of names (which is understandable, since prop 22 is nothing but a modification of AB 5), the comment makes sense.

[Dirlewanger]

And a majority of gig workers also were in favor of it.

[mdorazio]

Desperate people tend to be in favor of things that let them keep their jobs, regardless of how exploitative and shitty. This is not a good argument in support of anything.

[wukerplank]

Is there a source for that?

[remote_phone]

Yes I meant AB5, my mistake.