Indeed, the "We should return to taxicabs" argument reminds me of a Mozilla employee's comment where they called out how much different people's expectations are of Chrome & Google, than of Firefox & Mozilla: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24122017. Yes, many things are wrong with gig driving.. but driving a taxi meant either making very little (renting the cab & medallion) or incurring an incredible debt load to buy a medallion. Medallions/arbitrary exclusivity isn't going to solve the pay problem (let alone deliver the service that riders now expect), and the taxi industry still won't let medallions die.

The discussion is no longer logical. You can't say here is the law - here are facts - here is result. Now it's here is law (with lots of totally random elements and exceptions that are confusing for everyone involved if you actually try and comply with it - I've had folks says they promise they are independent businesses, and they look and act like it, but the law says things like if they don't have all the business licenses setup they are not, and some cities like SF require that if you do work for a company that has business in SF that work can be considered happening in SF and so you need to get licensed there etc etc).

I used to be a stickler for trying to get folks to comply with AB5 - but I'd guess we are at 70% noncomplaince still against letter of law - and it's not worth fighting employers AND contractors to get everyone to switch when they don't want to.

One workaround I've been recently is to hire out of state or look at offshoring - freelance writers are a good example where I don't think there is a way to really hire them legally in CA, but you can still hire them outside of state as I understand it. The mechanics of turning all authors into W2 employees is such a big leap, but most authors don't have all the right business licenses setup in every city they might have work appear.

They have more control so they are more likely to be considered actual contractors.