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The gig work companies spent $200M pushing Prop 22, if you were curious how profitable that business model has been and how much money isn’t making its way to the people who aren’t their employees. https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_22,_App-Based...

If anyone had any notion at all that any part of Prop 22 was going to work out for the workers, all I can say is keep that starry-eyed naivety, because the world’s a cold place and we could use some optimists, I guess.

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It's sort of elitist to essentially say, "There was a well funded campaign for a ballot measure, and voters are too hopelessly stupid to see past it and make their own decisions." I voted for it because I thought AB4 was a badly written law and the legislature needed to be chastised. I'd vote for it again. As another commenter pointed out here, AB4 was a mess that threatened to disrupt a large number of people's livelihoods.

Did you miss quote the OP?

Not quoting OP directly, just commenting on the oft-used trope ('the votes were bought!') used to attack the measure's legitimacy.

Why do you think they spent $200M?

Good point. Whether $200M bought any votes, it's telling that corporate CA thought it was worth that.

Can you explain why that isn't a good point? I assume companies don't spend $200 million for something that won't be in their benefit

Is it elitist to say that marketing works, even if it ultimately is not in the target audience’s self-interest? Being under-informed or given misleading information is not the same as being stupid.

> Is it elitist to say that marketing works, even if it ultimately is not in the target audience’s self-interest?

Is it elitism to tell someone they don't know their own self-interest, and you do?

Is it elitism to refuse to answer a question and instead ask another question?

With that attitude, no policy would ever need to be advocated for, and there would be no reason to buy campaign ads. Marketing as a business would be completely ineffective.

The rideshare companies clearly don’t share your philosophy - otherwise they would not have spent massive amounts of money promoting the proposition. It seems reasonable to me that they were trying to sell a piece of legislation to voters that would greatly benefit the rideshare companies financially while downplaying the negative effects many believed it would have on gig workers.

My understanding is that this law is designed to benefit companies and not workers because it forces workers to pursue their own remedies. Being a gig worker, it seems to me, is similar to being a contractor, where you have to handle all of you own legal stuff. States can only really have power legally if you are classified as an employee which falls under their jurisdiction. I'm stating the obvious because I think workers expect protections when there was no justification for it. In the future, if you want the government to intervene, support employee only legislation. If you want to remain independent then know that you will have to seek all of you remedies under your own abilities. You can't have it both ways and don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

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