Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

Safe and maybe fairer for consumers yes, not so much for the employees. That's why they are getting ruled against with employment law.

I can think of quite a few other businesses who would love to toss out all employee protections and benefits. I'm sure it would slightly lower prices and improve efficiency here and there. Is that worth the cost though?...

A government can ignore "basic economics" (bit of a vauge term), the government creates the environment that businesses exist in.

If "basic economics" produce a result that is clearly unethical or a detriment to society then it can be ignored.

This is not it.

The problem is that the law does not account for ‘gig workers’, so produces are shoehorned into one extreme or the other.

I don’t think that Uber drivers should be employees, but I think the law should afford (enforce companies to give) them more protection than they get as ‘contractors’.

It’s funny - the laws and regulations changed to accommodate ride sharing, creating specific schemes for them. But it hasn’t for this new bread of worker.

I would rather be charged for what I'm using instead of an amount that's fudged to amortize unexpected incidental costs over all users. Maybe some kind of additional insurance against extra costs might be a feature that some users would use, but I prefer to self-insure than help others defray costs.

> which leaves the drivers with less work overall.

...which is a positive feedback loop that should encourage them to pick up those previously declined routes. Or charge higher rates that better reflect their reluctance for those routes. Isn't that how supply & demand is supposed to work?

I think companies run A/B tests because they don't know which option is the worse service.

This is silly.

Companies have ALWAYS had test products that they offer to a subset of customers.

There's no legal test to be applied here.

I'm curious about whether a/b testing would be considered human subjects research and therefore governed by federal regulations. [1]

I suspect that it will be in some cases. Does Uber have IRBs? What about other big tech companies?

If you work in a company and see them doing something immoral and possibly illegal, you should speak up or report the behavior.

1. https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/decision-cha...

How is that different from a regular taxi driver?

Where's the "sharing" in the "ride share" if the driver is forced to take any ride?

Many people argue that those kinds of contractors are employees. Often your an employee of the contracting firm AFAIK too, so you have to follow the implicit orders of the contracting firm.

But you could have refused the customer in the first place. Nobody forced you to make a contract with him. Of course, once you did, you are compelled to keep up your end of the bargain, and that probably included you doing those jira tasks (you could have probably refused to do entirely different work, like walking the dog of the manager, when you were originally contracted for doing IT development work).

A true contractor in the rideshare space would have an individual contract with each rider, and could of course reject riders based on the terms of the contract (of which the target location is one). However, once a customer is accepted based on the agreed-upon terms (fare, target, number of passengers etc.) he wouldn't be able to throw the passenger out in the middle of the ride for no good reason.

If you now want to say that a rideshare contractor should not be able to reject a customer based upon the terms of the ride, I ask you: why shouldn't he? With whom does he have a contract that binds him? And you say: with Uber. And I say: yeah, and that's why your analogy is fundamentally flawed, why he isn't an individual contractor for each customer but simply an employee of Uber, with whom he has a contract that mandates him to accept all customers that Uber deems acceptable. Exactly like a plumber working at a plumbing company who also has to do plumbing work at any customer his boss sends him to, while his individually contracting plumber colleague can decide to decline or accept customers at his own discretion.

Having some people cheat their way around it does not invalidate the law in the first place and neither does it invalidate its intention. The equivalent in Uber's system is a driver cancelling a ride after accepting it and seeing the destination, maybe claiming his car broke down on the way to the pickup location or whatever. The fact that people can pull that off also does not invalidate Uber's original attempt to make drivers accept riders regardless of their destination.

Does something prevent incorporating in another location that allows it? Doubt it.

You don't need an LLC to run a business. Plenty of sole proprietors do this along with filing self employment taxes without ever forming an LLC.

> What work that any contractor does, given that it is work contracted for a necessary economic purpose within the business of the contracting party, isn't within the latter's usual course of business?

There are existing, relatively easily identified examples: tech companies hiring (on contract) workers to provide janitorial or cafeteria services, retailers hiring contracts to fix plumbing or install fixtures in their stores, landlords hiring individuals to paint homes, and the list could go on.

The "usual course of business" has a clear legal definition under California law: "the regular and customary work of a business, performed within or upon the premises or worksite of the client employer."

In the case of Uber, "software development" and "drivers" clearly are required in the "ordinary and regular and expected course of dealings" in their marketplace. The company's entire premise is built on connecting drivers to passengers via a software platform: they don't have a business without both of those things. One might argue over whether drivers' cars count as a "worksite", or whether remote workers working from home count as working from a "worksite" or "on premise"--but those arguments would be thin and shallow.

Different meaning of service. Many hosts have automated the process so they hand off entry remotely and employ an independent cleaning service. It’s hard to classify someone as an employee when some have been paid for ‘work done’ after they died.

The prongs don't matter for AM or eBay, since AB5 exempts them from the analysis altogether.

But on that note, a lot of people seem to be ignoring the crucial differences in the transactional relationships between the parties for websites like eBay.

Sellers use eBay to conduct auctions and sell their goods. They have control over inventory, pricing, starting and ending auctions, accepting final bids, etc. eBay as acts the seller's agent and provides services to the seller with respect to transactions similar to how an employee or contractor would. IOW, eBay is acting as a contractor to the seller.

Similarly, for AirBnB, hosts use AirBnB as a marketplace for provider hoteling services. AirBnB is acting as their booking agent and payment collections agent for the host. IOW, AirBnb is acting as a contractor to the host. To the extent that AirBnB itself is paying the hosts (and is not merely passing along money from guests), it isn't for providing hoteling services on AirBnB's behalf, rather it's an incentive for making a property available on the AirBnB marketplace. (I know this because my former employer got paid $$$ to make certain beachside properties it owned available for booking on AirBnB, and these payments were separate from payments we received related to AirBnb-booked stays.)

For Uber/Lyft, the relationship is reversed. The driver is acting as an agent for Uber/Lyft: Uber/Lyft assigns them a ride, and they must provide the ride to get paid. Moreover, in contrast to actual marketplaces, the amount drivers get paid by Uber is not directly tied to the amount charged to the passenger; indeed, driver's generally do not know how much riders actually pay for a trip unless they ask the rider what they're getting charged. This indicates that the transactional relationship for both the driver and the passenger is with Uber, not each other. (Further explanation would dive into principles of contract law, so I leave it to you for further research if you want to go down that path.)

No, that's delusional. The state is at most interested in recouping revenue because it's out of money due to Covid. There are proposals on the table that would realistically improve the environment around gig work, but the state doesn't appear to care about those.

Then just come out and make a clean law against gig work. That's not what's done though.

It's fine to be politically motivated, however it's not good faith to be motivated against specific businesses while pretending to be following a broad principle that then needs exemption holes poked all over it to make work. It indicates there is no principle being followed, or at least they don't know what it should be, a situation which everyone should agree is dangerous.

Because that’s how innovation happens in the US? How are passengers trains innovating over the past 60 years?

We were talking about Sidecar, not Uber. SideCar was not huge at any point in its lifecyle. At one point in 2016/2017 it very briefly had the opportunity to become big, but failed the execution.

If you let drivers decide whom to pick up, you end up with situations like black men never being picked up.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/postever...

I thought we were all about equality? Are we now not about equality? I can't keep up.

And if a woman for some sexist reason can refuse a fare, why can't a man refuse a fare if, e.g., he does not like the destination area because it is riddled with crime and he is exponentially more likely to be robbed?

Again, another person being downvoted for living in reality and understanding that the existence of a phone app mediating things doesn't fundamentally change the risk profile of Uber from that of picking up hitchhikers.

Yes, it can absolutely happen that you pick someone up and they end up raping you. The opposite happens too, you order up an Uber when you're drunk and end up the raped one yourself. While the app might possibly offer information that makes it easier to get justice in the future, and while that may dissuade some folks, in the end crimes of opportunity like this will continue to happen.

Intelligent, self-preserving people will always use their own personal heuristics for risk management regardless of political correctness. If this ends up looking prejudiced, the problem to solve is the input information (in the form of observed events and news) that causes the prejudice, not to tell the person to just pretend that there's no reason to have such a risk calculation.

Both. As a driver, no medallion mafia and astronomical prices to deal with. As a rider, no taxi drivers and their horrible service to deal with.

Taxi companies are monopolies allowed by the state, it sucks for the last ones who paid $300,000 for a license to operate just before Uber took off, but technology finds its way.

So the hardest part is calculating the amount of the subsidy. Once you know that you just make it a deduction from the fare the customer pays and the government pays the difference.

Calculating the amount is finicky because the subsidy itself is going to affect the market pricing. But in the end, as long as there is a competitive market for both drivers and ride share companies, you know whether the subsidy is too high or too low because the subsidized cost of a ride there will be more or less than it is in other places (rather than exactly the same as you're trying to make it).

Because if the subsidy was too high then there would be "too many" drivers and the subsidized price would fall below what's required, and if the subsidy was too low then the opposite.

Not the original poster, but the answer I can think of is the mail service. In many countries it guarantees the cost of sending a letter from A to B is the same, independent of distance between A and B or the popularity of A as a source and B as a destination of letters.

That often even stays the case when the mail service gets privatized.

I’ve never heard of such services to originally be privatized, though, or of the service to be privatized to multiple providers (say with one company serving the large cities and another the countryside, or one doing half the country, and another doing the other half)

Also: are you sure this is libertarianism? I would think subsidies can’t exist in a libertarian world because the government doesn’t exist there.

Typically lower income folks can received reduced fare or free public transportation cards. Municipalities around the world are opening up to the idea of explicitly subsidizing ubers or replacing mass transit with uber in some cases: https://prospect.org/infrastructure/cities-turn-uber-instead...

This is a relatively new model, although makes a lot of sense (lower cost and more flexibility to operate uber pools vs empty buses late at night). It is not a stretch to assume you could get income based "discount cards" for uber usage.

It's live in Seattle, Portland and Chicago.

There's a major difference between 'unsafe because of high crime rates' (the actual case in some places) and 'unsafe because an entire mob of random people will manifest out of the ether, drag you from your car, and beat you up' (the nonsense part). The latter has been seeing increasing use lately as part of the endless barrage of 'all of (city name) is a flaming ruin constantly prowled by antifa supersoldiers' claims against the ongoing protests in several cities.

In what American city will you get dragged out of your car and beaten? Somewhere cartel controlled in south America, maybe, but that would be a pricey uber coming all the way from the U.S.

I can tell you from personal experience, much of the reporting on chaz/chop has been exaggerated. While any given incident may be accurately reported, the media selects the worst incidents/angles then tries to pass that off as the standard experience.

The incidents reported are reality, however that doesn't mean the picture being painted isn't misleading.

  Are HN posters really so sheltered that they don't know that this is a reality in many major American cities?

Man the irony here is really lost.

I take it your experience in cities is extremely limited.

Which area?

Maybe they were afraid for their own safety? I know when I visit the US, each city has it's no-go areas that you want to avoid. I remember my first time in Dallas many years ago pre-GPS era, drove somewhere for dinner, stopped to fill up petrol and get directions to my hotel and the service station attendant told me I should probably exit the area ASAP because it is not safe.

I lived in Boston a couple years before Uber was a thing and if I was out at night and needed a ride back to Southie (where I lived), it would take me four or five taxis at least to get one to agree to go there.

Uber eliminated that problem. It would be terrible to go back to that system where drivers can just refuse you based on where you are going or what you look like.

You do not want courts adjusting when they take cases specifically because of the economy. Doing that is to explicitly make the court an economic actor rather than a legal arbiter, which is a really bad idea.

I detest uber. yet AB5 is an abomination, an embarrassment. sad

Better not ban child labor if it puts kids out of work, right?

If a person is dying of thirst, they'll stick drink brackish water if it's all their offered.

What is egregious about uber is that they themselves are tapping into the clean water source, extracting the best part for themselves and then leaving only brackish water for all the uber drivers.

If you believe the end goal of a society is to extract every last bit of value from its members, then yes, Uber is great.

If you believe the end goal of society is to provide some sort of dignified life for its members, then I don't see how you can justify what Uber does.

> How about this: let’s presume all of what you say is true. What if after all those costs are accounted for, it’s still profitable for many people to drive for Uber.

There have many studies done about what someone can earn from Uber. Even without the externalities nobody is going to get rich from Uber. With the externalities, they are barely making a subsistence wage.

Lastly, I would argue that even if working for Uber is a net negative, in the short term (even years) they can extract some value from an assets they already have (their vehicle and their time) against costs in the future. For someone who needs cash today, this is a acceptable tradeoff.

They say the "fare multiplier can range from 0.5x to 5.0x in increments of 0.1". Not fully free, but being able to set over 5x the regular price seems mostly academic.

No, it's not. Is Apple in the business of producing records because it runs iTunes? No, it's in the business of software (and hardware), and some of that software is used to sell music.

Trying to claim that a software service to run a marketplace to sell X is the same thing as actually running a business of building or doing X takes some mental gymnastics.

So now Craigslist needs to be regulated as an automobile dealer because it hooks up people selling cars to each other? Is Apple in the business of recording music because it runs iTunes? Does DoorDash need to have their offices inspected for food safety because they run a market for food delivery. No. Craigslist operates a platform for selling cars, it doesn't actually sell cars itself. Apple doesn't actually make music (unless they runs studio they I don't know about), they run a market for artists and record companies to sell their own music. DoorDash operates a platform for restaurants to sell food, it doesn't actually sell food itself. Contrary to your insistence otherwise, running a platform that connects buyers and sellers of something is not the same thing as actually providing that good or service yourself. People say that it takes mental gymnastics to arrive at this conclusion. I see the opposite: how do you manage to convince yourself that people writing code at Uber are in the same line of business as getting behind the wheel of a taxi? How do people convince themselves that a PM at DoorDash works at a restaurant?

Also, you misstate (or rather, only partially state) the description of their business in SEC filings. They describe themselves operating a market for food delivery and personal transportation. They are in the business of transportation and food delivery, but they are a in a different layer than the people actually driving cars. This is akin to saying Expedia is in the airline business. Yes, but they sell airline tickets they don't fly planes. Calling Uber a taxi company makes a out as much sense as saying Expedia is an airline.

And for 3 & 4 this could easily be resolved by having driver set up their own LLCs. But I'm not convinced this is actually a requirement. Plenty of people are contractors and fill out 1099s without operating their own LLC or partnership or some other type of company.

Absolutely. This actually a type of relationship that many businesses have. Most hair salons don't actually employ any hairdresser. They employ the people that clean the shop, and run the register. But the hairdresser themselves are independent and lease a stall in the shop. The salon very much depends on the independent hairdressers to function.

Pointing out that Uber would cease to function without independent contractors is entirely correct, but does nothing to demonstrate that that these workers should be categorized as employees rather than contractors.

Current classifications are irrelevant because the parent was laying out a new system, in which you could either be an employee, an independent contractor, or a dependent contractor. Under that proposed system, there is a significant difference between a dependent contractor and an employee, because the dependent contractor can choose to stop working whenever they want, and can work for multiple companies, while an employee could not do that.

And regardless, I don't know of any hourly employees who can choose to stop working for several weeks without notice, and then start working again whenever they want. That is a major difference between something like Uber, and a normal hourly job. Also hourly people are paid by the hour, while with Uber you are paid by the job.

The dependent contractor can stop working without facing reprocussions, the restaurant worker has to work the shifts that they are scheduled or they will get fired.

Also the restaurant worker is guaranteed minimum wage, while the dependent contractor is not, since they are not paid hourly.

What I am saying is that all those are up to the employer.

So it is disingenuous, when the company talks about additional benefits of being a contractor because those are all self imposed.

> I challenge your premise that it's possible to consider a labor relationship exploitative if both parties voluntarily enter into it.

This seems to overlook the long fights for Sundays off, Saturdays off, a 60 hour work week, a 40 hour work week and so on. When options on one side is "be evicted from home, leave family to starve" and the other side is "postpone additional revenue until someone more desperate signs up" - you have to consider what "voluntary" means.

>I challenge your premise that it's possible to consider a labor relationship exploitative if both parties voluntarily enter into it.

This is a philosophical point, and there are scholars working in economics and economic philosophy who have argued that some kind of mutual benefit is does not preclude exploitation. See for example J.E Roemer, Roberto Veneziani, and Nikolos Vrousalis, three economists on the matter. See also here[0]. In addition, slavery may not only be problematic because of the 'degenerative case' mentioned.

[0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/exploitation/#ConcExpl

Free markets are excellent for lifting the baseline level of wealth among a nation's people (Marx admitted this as industrialization rapidly increased the wealth of Western Europe at the time of his coming of age). It does not solve the issue of wealth inequality, and exacerbates it to an extent to the point where an individual's wealth and the labor they expend to create that wealth are completely non-correlating -- you can work four times as hard as a laborer than an investor and not see any return while capital ends up with most of the value extracted from your labor.

Even the most pro-market economists acknowledge this critical, showstopping bug in the free market. Adam Smith acknowledges it. Friedman acknowledges it. Where opinions diverge is the solution, or whether the issue of inequality is even worth solving or worthy of government intervention. If you exit the toxic and obnoxious Silicon Valley Bay Area bubble, look out the window into an actual working class individual's life, I think you'll find plenty of evidence for that answer to be a resounding Yes.

The situation with Uber is similar, and California has decided that it is indeed worth the effort to allow drivers to keep more of the wealth they generate for the company. It's not communism, it's literally the first principle of commerce that individuals providing labor receive full compensation for their labor in return. There is no more a capitalist concept than that.

Very few drivers own their cars (or more importantly their monopoly medallion). Those are owned by investors like the presidents former lawyer, Michael Cohen.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/08/23/tax...

Do they set my hours then?

Were the rides more expensive because they weren’t using unsustainable VC money to subsidize fares?

Great, thanks!

> You can't just carry an argument to its complete extreme - that's not how it works.

Reductio ad absurdam is a legitimate way to respond to an argument, if the argument is susceptible to it.

"It's not a bad law - if Uber can't operate in compliance with it, it has a bad business model." is an argument that could be used to defend any law. It defends the concept of law itself, rather than the specific law we are discussing. It's perfectly reasonable to point that out and ask where the line should be drawn.

It’s not akin to that at all, because child labor laws concern minors and this law concerns adults.

Unless your argument is that there’s nothing an adult should be able to do that a child shouldn’t be able to do?

Not really. AB5 hurts a lot of small businesses that weren't doing anything wrong. It's a classic case of unintended consequences.

Except these are adults of sound mind willingly entering into the agreement. I absolutely loathe these types of arguments first because its false equivalence and secondly, because why do you know better than the Freelance Journalists who were hurt by this? Stop nannying.

A better example is probably the minimum wage, which also imposes government-mandated conditions on employment, applies to adults, and is countered by very similar arguments: it harms economic activity, and interferes with the ability of adult citizens to enter into whatever employment agreement they desire.

Whether the minimum wage actually harms economic activity does not have a clear answer; you can find studies all over the place in terms of conclusions.

And the supporting argument--that businesses should be regulated because they have asymmetrical power when hiring--is also used to justify other policies that HN folks tend to like, such as the California prohibition on non-compete agreements.

Not at all. Children are not able to make many legal decisions for themselves. As a society we make this distinction repeatedly from contract law to sexual intercourse. And we’ve decided that whatever economic inefficiencies arise are worth the social gains.

This however is very different. Adults (in the US) are allowed to willfully enter into mostly any sort of agreement with another consenting party. In areas where that’s not the case, there is usually some other greater fundamental social protection that we seek to prioritize (i.e. you cannot legally permit someone to murder you). This law however continues to encroach on the things that free individuals can do. If I want to work for Uber under the terms that apparently many millions of others also want to, then that is my right. The government is effectively seeking to make this illegal...for my own protection.

The issue here is that 99% of HN commentators, politicians, etc have no experience in the gig economy yet project their own ideology onto the situation. Would it be better for workers if Uber provided more benefits? Sure. But Uber loses billions every quarter. So who pays for this? If Uber doesn’t pass on the costs to consumers, it goes bust. If Uber does, there’s a good chance that consumers spend less, or use alternatives. Either way it is likely to harm drivers.

The beauty of a free market is that if Uber was legitimately a bad deal for drivers, they would have never had a business in the first place.

No they haven't. That's the point. This 'misclassification' only came in via this new law.

Are you arguing that there should be no such thing as a part-time employee? Either work 40 hours per week with full benefits or stay home? That seems... weird.

Isn't every law specifically intended to put a group of people in noncompliance with it? What's the point of making a law if everyone was going to comply regardless?

> specifically intended to put Uber and similar companies in a state of noncompliance with it.

It would be capricious if it were more targeted, written without ample public discussion, or if the affected firms had no ability to continue operations. As I understand it, none of that is true of AB5. For example, the affected companies are free to use contingent workforces in a manner similar to the other many thousands of companies that were not affected.

I'm far from an expert on the law, but wouldn't a fair read also be that those companies were operating in noncompliance with community norms (as expressed by voter preferences), and so lawmakers plugged a regulatory hole?

In that way, could it be seen as similar to a body writing a new law (say) prohibiting people from carrying long rifles into grocery stores? Would that also be a law written capriciously?

The new law merely codified a legal standard that the California Supreme Court had previously come up with (in Dynamex in 2018) as an interpretation of existing law.

Yes, you'd want a better general purpose fix.

But solid general purpose laws are the responsibility of the lawmakers. They're the reason there's a crazy exception list, and they deserve the blame for it. The proposition doesn't make it meaningfully worse.

A general fix would let legislators off the hook by specifically giving themselves an exception (of which there is already quite a few) the legislators now have to deal with all the unintended, but very predictable, consequences of there shitty law without even getting to say the people wanted it.

Okay, so Uber mixes both those scenarios.

I wonder if Uber has filed SS-8 to have the IRS evaluate the situation.

They have fixed performance guidelines (star ratings) and fire employees for not picking up jobs (rides). The employee also only works for Uber (not the individual customer, who is anonymous until the job is accepted), who determines the rate and is the ultimate decider if the completed work is accepted (they resolve all customer disputes and are the final say on whether you get paid, not the customer). Uber determines the method of completing work (e.g. how long you have to wait for customers before canceling).

Critically, these “contractors” are integral to Uber’s regular business operations. 100% of Uber’s product relies on its drivers.

On the other hand, they don’t provide equipment or set schedules. Clearly their mode of work blends aspects of W2 and 1099. But also, because these drivers are integral to Uber’s business, it’s possible they’re in violation by not compensating for/providing equipment. Again, the drivers are told who to pick up and where to go, and if they don’t do it while they’re on shift, they get “fired.”

The only factor that comes close to making them a contractor is the lack of schedule, and maybe the fact that they can go work for Lyft too. But every other aspect of the job looks like W2 to me. More checkboxes are on the W2 side of the guidelines.

So, California’s law fills in that logical gap by determining that, in this scenario, the workers are W2 employees.

If the IRS has a problem with the law in California, I assume they might have said something by now, or sued the state?

I think they could do it if they wanted to.

Uber has over 22,000 employees [1]. They have HR professionals whose whole job is managing those employees. And they have billions of dollars available to do whatever they need to.

If they wanted to make every driver in California a W-2 employee, I am confident they could do it as quickly as they wanted. And the court wouldn't make them immediately stop. They wouldn't need to shut down. They just need to begin transitioning. Courts are generally reasonable. They'll understand changes take time.

Shutting down is entirely their way of giving the finger to California for making them do something they didn't want to do.

[1] https://www.uber.com/newsroom/company-info/

Sure, I'm sure they have some actual contractors who are truly contractors under the law. Maybe some consultants, builders, painters, whatever. But not their drivers.

The correct term for a "side hustle" person is "part-time employee."

Let's not forget the outrageous prices.

Yeah, I’m totally with the drivers on this. Far too often “disruption” actually is a very predatory undertaking, with far too little benefit to society. The organizations behind this are typically very low on FTE, and maximizing shareholder value and profits and “democratizing” the suppliers (ie a race to the bottom for the drivers).

You see it all over the place, and I for one hope that this trend is reversed in the next decade. It’s not good for society as a whole.

It’d be a very American thing to do to sue for the government enforcing labor rights through legislation and judicial action. Push that throttle forward further while racing to the bottom.

Perhaps put that time into advocating for a living wage and universal healthcare instead of embracing Stockholm Syndrome with gig platforms. They might not be around much longer, but your government will be.

If this truly is an invalid business model (riders can't/refuse to pay driver's full salary + benefits), then a lot of people willing to work at these lower rates will be losing their jobs / extra income.

Drivers have been able to set their own prices in California for some time now https://www.uber.com/blog/california/set-your-fares/

Would a system that allows the drivers to "set their own pay" and in which Uber dispatches drivers with the lowest rates follow the law better? This would clearly be a race to the bottom (the pay would probably be even lower than what Uber drivers get today). Is that a preferable outcome?

I also object to this characterization of consent.

> The only freedom an uber contractor has is "when to work".

How is this not complete freedom? Loads of contracts out there specify the rate that the contractor will be paid, and both parties are expected to uphold that specified pay. Are those contracts no longer valid? In some cases with written contracts, the pay is specified as a non-negotiable condition from the paying party, and the "only freedom" the contractor has is to take it or leave it. Is that a violation? If a contractor never actually gets hired under a contract for which she sets her own rates and all of the other "freedoms" supposedly necessary for forming a contract (in CA), is she being oppressed in some other way?

No one is holding a gun to Uber drivers' heads forcing them to drive. They seem to be doing it voluntarily (this seems the case for every one I've met). Insofar as this is their only option, this is not a problem of Uber's creation, but of the overall political economy. And that, after all, is GP's point.

True, but to be fair, that is a huge freedom, and one many people want or need.

Yes, driving Uber is a shit job, but for many people it is far better or more compatible with their lives than waiting tables or working retail, which are the realistic alternatives for most Uber drivers.

> You compare uber to etsy, but uber sets a price and does not even list the name of the driver till you order to pay.

Yes, but the driver is similarly offered the fare, and may choose to accept or not. This is actually one of the critical distinctions between employees and non-employees. If they were an actual employee, Uber would be able to just assign the fare to them.

This is also unlike taxis, where, if your light is on, it is illegal to not accept the fare. (Although violations of these rules are common and blatant, which ironically stopped me from using taxis altogether.)

It’s certainly true that Uber operates in a grey area. When cities have explicitly banned them, they stop operating (e.g. Vancouver). It seems like California has clarified some of the ambiguity around employment, and Uber may similarly stop operating.

The genius of early (Uber X) Uber was that it launched a service that was illegal, but got away with it and paved a road to legality because it was significantly better than its competitors, liked by customer (read: voters), and displaced competitors no one had much sympathy for.

> in every country uber operated/operates in they are against the law.

Wrong

> Uber specifically displays the current problem with new startups, they don't make things more effective, or cheaper.

Wrong (https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-vs-taxi-pricing-by-city... and even more since then with Uber X expansion)

Let's say we leave aside low voting turnout, lack of education about issues, etc. I don't have a problem if people decide to vote Uber and eventually others out of California. Your state, your rules. I don't really use Uber (or Lyft) unless I am traveling so I really don't care what happens to them, and I definitely don't care about what happens to them in California. I just happen to disagree with California, and I think if this goes through it's going to be a losing proposition and once the reality of this sets in (i.e. people won't have access to ride share) it'll cause an actual public opinion upheaval. It's easy to complain about it and be edgy and "support workers rights" - just wait until you reap what you sow.

I'm not sure how my comment on this thread is any more of a cheap shot than any other comment, or how it's more of a cheap shot than telling someone you disagree with to "get a cup of coffee". I thought what I wrote was at least a coherent opinion on the matter. I'm sorry that it made you angry and that you took a negative interpretation of what I wrote. Not my intention.

> California, including especially the Bay Area, LA, and San Diego, has public transportation

You really had me for a moment until I realized you're joking :)

In all seriousness, public transportation in California is the real joke.

> It is possible to visit every major city and national park in CA using just public transportation.

Sure, and it's possible for me to canoe to Antarctica but it's not a reasonable way for anyone to travel.

They operate under illegal business models to produce impossibly low costs, driving out all legitimate competitors, including municipal infrastructure.

The Uber business plan has always been to break the law at a massive enough scale that they can buy new laws before enforcement catches up with them.

I don't personally have an opinion of the CEO but I think most people would have preferred preventing this situation, making it right, or shutting down in a way that doesn't leave users and drivers without much warning. Instead we see this posturing threat.

I was just pointing out that the market exists and there's money to be made. Something will fill the void if Uber leaves.

Do Californians get a lot of benefit for the high taxes they currently pay? Californians seem to be voting with their feet, moving to lower tax states: https://www.ocregister.com/2019/10/31/190122-more-people-lef...

Do you feel strongly that one more tax would solve all of California's problems?

That’s a disingenuous take on it.

CA could fix it’s own health system to cover everyone. Yes, there are federal rules they’d need to work around, but they could do it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/business/economy/californ...

Basically, one someone tallied up the cost, it ran out of steam. Just like in VT.

Decent question, I'm not qualified to answer. Few, (none?) companies have 1M employees, how do they/insurance do it?

Luckily for Uber, if they don't want their new employees working for Lyft while they're on the clock, they can make it a condition of employment. Bingo bongo, problem solved.

I don't think you actually understand how fast food restaurants operate.

You actually can take several months off from McDonalds if you want and come back. Many employees do, especially the ones that work at college-town McDs...

Moreover, you can switch shifts at will, so long as you find another employee to exchange shifts with.

Pretty much the difference between fast food and Uber is that fast food is a minimum 8 hour shift and Uber can be as short as a 1 minute ride.