I agree with you on one point, "ridesharing" is a silly word. I would call it something like an "Open Car Service".
The main reason I can't get on board with the rest of this line of argument is that it ultimately just comes down to paternalistic protection of the poor disenfranchised gig workers that you clearly view as being less than capable, rational adult humans. The number of gig economy workers has been growing exponentially for years? Somebody must be tricking them into taking this shit work, and confusing them about the real costs.
Gig economy workers have overwhelmingly spoken that they like this work, by continuing to sign up for it in massive numbers. Or at least that they like it more than their alternatives at the time. If it were some massive trap, don't you think the word would have gotten out by now? The ability to entirely set their own schedule and work as much or little as they choose is appealing enough to draw people in in droves, despite all of the downsides of this type of work.
Getting rid of Uber and Lyft completely throws out the baby with the bathwater here. It won't magically create alternative full time jobs that these workers will prefer to their current situation, it'll just make it much harder for many of them to have any work. Surely there are better incremental policies that could limit the downsides for many of these workers without taking away most of the positives for them too.
As with many far-leftist beliefs these days, I can't help but conclude that the driving factor for a law like AB5 is punitive anger towards successful, wealthy organizations. Just like with the NIMBYs using socialist rhetoric to justify blocking needed middle class housing, it's much more important that the organizations they see as the bad guys suffer than it is to maximize the overall, utilitarian good for the parties they claim to care about. I sincerely hope this way of thinking dies out, almost as much as I hope the current far-right way of thinking dies out.
The main reason I can't get on board with the rest of this line of argument is that it ultimately just comes down to paternalistic protection of the poor disenfranchised gig workers that you clearly view as being less than capable, rational adult humans. The number of gig economy workers has been growing exponentially for years? Somebody must be tricking them into taking this shit work, and confusing them about the real costs.
Gig economy workers have overwhelmingly spoken that they like this work, by continuing to sign up for it in massive numbers. Or at least that they like it more than their alternatives at the time. If it were some massive trap, don't you think the word would have gotten out by now? The ability to entirely set their own schedule and work as much or little as they choose is appealing enough to draw people in in droves, despite all of the downsides of this type of work.
Getting rid of Uber and Lyft completely throws out the baby with the bathwater here. It won't magically create alternative full time jobs that these workers will prefer to their current situation, it'll just make it much harder for many of them to have any work. Surely there are better incremental policies that could limit the downsides for many of these workers without taking away most of the positives for them too.
As with many far-leftist beliefs these days, I can't help but conclude that the driving factor for a law like AB5 is punitive anger towards successful, wealthy organizations. Just like with the NIMBYs using socialist rhetoric to justify blocking needed middle class housing, it's much more important that the organizations they see as the bad guys suffer than it is to maximize the overall, utilitarian good for the parties they claim to care about. I sincerely hope this way of thinking dies out, almost as much as I hope the current far-right way of thinking dies out.