It'll force local municipalities to take care of their transportation needs directly instead of outsourcing it to disloyal mercenaries.

The cities that will be hurt are the ones that over relied on a parasitic business instead of investing in essential infrastructure.

I think your views of local municipalities ability to provide transportation in california are way too optimistic. San Francisco currently operates the most expensive bus stop ever built https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transbay_Transit_Center

What is parasitic about it? That they are using public roads?

They operate under illegal business models to produce impossibly low costs, driving out all legitimate competitors, including municipal infrastructure.

The Uber business plan has always been to break the law at a massive enough scale that they can buy new laws before enforcement catches up with them.

I'm just not convinced this is a thing that's happened. Which cities have avoided investing in municipal infrastructure just because Uber exists?

> one cannot combine ideological utopia and a functional economy.

And still we should try. It's not like California didn't have a functional economy before Uber. Sometimes it's right to make sacrifices in order to uphold our ideas.

AB5 is broader than Uber, and didn't exist before it.

Uber isn't special. If they can't exist without exploiting workers then they shouldn't exist. The void will get filled by something better.

Then shouldn't you also be applauding the CEO for his decision? I hate to present this kind of gotcha, but I'm honestly confused on how to reconcile "Uber shouldn't exist in California" and "Uber shouldn't announce it's shutting down in California".

I don't personally have an opinion of the CEO but I think most people would have preferred preventing this situation, making it right, or shutting down in a way that doesn't leave users and drivers without much warning. Instead we see this posturing threat.

I was just pointing out that the market exists and there's money to be made. Something will fill the void if Uber leaves.