What Ab5 did is destroy small businesses. I am a musician. If a friend hires me to do a recording project, or to sing in their band, they shouldn’t have to pay me as an employee for three hours of work for which I’m getting well over $40 an hour. Moreover, I don’t WANT to be an employee, because then I can’t write off my mileage or expenses. The benefits of employment are pretty much only available to people who work for one employer more than a certain number of bourse per week. If I have a regular gig for two hours every Sunday morning at a church, I do not work enough hours for them to qualify for sick pay or health benefits, and I lose the ability to write off my mileage and expenses. I don’t disagree that there are some companies who try to pay people who should be employees as contractors to save money, but the people who really got fucked over by this law are people trying to operate single-person businesses. Translators, who work from home and on their own time. Transcriptionists. Certain medical specialties who are only rarely needed (including respiratory therapists) so it does not make sense for them to be “employed” by any singular entity, and they would rather operate as a business. There’s a Facebook group with 20,000 members in it who have even better arguments than this (Freelancers Against AB5). AB5 essentially makes independent contracting illegal, and it hurt a LOT more people than it helped in California. Should rideshare companies make their drivers employees? I mean if they treat them as employees then they probably should, but if they can make their own hours and write off their expenses, then many would prefer to be paid as independent contractors. And I have been trying to explain this to people for over a year so if nothing in this argument makes sense to you I’m probably not going to engage anymore because I am so exhausted having this conversation.