Do you think there's any chance that this was actually what a majority of Californians wanted? You seem very confident that you know better what the voters wanted than they did.
While differences in spending surely have some effect, spending isn't the only way to get the word out. I didn't measure, but I feel pretty confident that no more than 60% of the total communication about Prop 22 that I heard from any source was pro. I think it could have been a minority actually. For every PR firm the pro side hired, there were thousands of unpaid activists on the con side (which does say something positive about the con side!).
I noticed you brought out the "lawmakers can't repeal" line. This is true, but also effectively standard for ballot measures in CA. In fact the default is that you can't repeal or change the law under any circumstances. This was one point that initially swayed me to vote "against", but once I learned that this was basically how all ballot measures work (including ones you support, I'm sure), I swung back to voting "for".
For me, this was a difficult call, but I voted "for" on the basis of the net good for the entire pool of current drivers, admittedly at the expense of the smaller number of drivers who would have been able to drive under a better deal had this passed.
The net effect this would have had on driver welfare is far from obvious, so it always bugs me when people assert that the only reason this passed by a 17 point margin is that people were tricked and confused by the ride sharing companies.
I think there's definitely a good chance a majority of Californians wanted it: Because a lot of Californians are blatantly unaware or unconcerned about how Uber takes advantage of their workers.
All that most people, unfortunately, care about, is that they can open an app that solves a problem for them, and it's solved. They don't care about the people who are hurt in the process.
And then, yeah, incredible spending on Uber's part is going to slide the scale a bit too.
Look, if you put a vote out to say that Amazon workers are now indentured servants of Jeff Bezos and have to work for free and can never leave, but their Amazon purchases will all be 15% cheaper... the vote would pass, because the majority of people don't work at Amazon.
While differences in spending surely have some effect, spending isn't the only way to get the word out. I didn't measure, but I feel pretty confident that no more than 60% of the total communication about Prop 22 that I heard from any source was pro. I think it could have been a minority actually. For every PR firm the pro side hired, there were thousands of unpaid activists on the con side (which does say something positive about the con side!).
I noticed you brought out the "lawmakers can't repeal" line. This is true, but also effectively standard for ballot measures in CA. In fact the default is that you can't repeal or change the law under any circumstances. This was one point that initially swayed me to vote "against", but once I learned that this was basically how all ballot measures work (including ones you support, I'm sure), I swung back to voting "for".
For me, this was a difficult call, but I voted "for" on the basis of the net good for the entire pool of current drivers, admittedly at the expense of the smaller number of drivers who would have been able to drive under a better deal had this passed.
The net effect this would have had on driver welfare is far from obvious, so it always bugs me when people assert that the only reason this passed by a 17 point margin is that people were tricked and confused by the ride sharing companies.