Let's suppose AB 5 provided cloudy outlook... before AB 5 that was not the case. There was no such law... did they somehow secretly know what was happening 5 years down the road and said, uhh, let's wait this out.

No, they could have done this before AB 5. They did not. This seems to say that this move would have happened if conditions allowed it and the situation was right for business.

What that means is sure AB 5 would have nixed this option. However, the trend before AB 5 was to off-load "non-core" competencies. Prop 22 re-instated the previous status, it did not introduce an altogether new status.

Prop 22 indicated the people preferred the original status to the new status introduced by AB 5, so we're back to where we started before AB 5.

The rideshare industry likely couldn't have supported this 5 years ago and it was clear that something like AB5 was going to happen for years. Prop 22 provides unprecedented clarity on how ridesharing will be legislated in California for the foreseeable future.

Let's suppose you're right, Uber and Lyft and DD all knew this and despite this knowledge thought, you know what, yeah it's uncertain but let's set CA as our HQ and concentrate our efforts there anyway...

Vons and Pavilions are not the same as Uber, Lyft, etc. I think they did it because they thought it was time to change their delivery logistics and were not waiting for concretization of the law around this.

Put another way, Vons' business model isn't centered around this law. It's incidental.

You are establishing weird timelines on these decisions. Uber, Lyft, etc set themselves up in California because they consider themselves tech companies. The state of California likely couldn't have cared less about the special class of workers they employed until the group reached a critical mass which obviously didn't happen before these companies were founded. I don't know specifically when they reached critical mass, but it was likely within the last 5 years. At that point it became clear that the state needed to do something. AB5 was one of those attempts.

Companies like Albertsons who could benefit from these businesses weren't willing to commit to embracing them until there was stability in the industry. For all the faults of Prop 22, it provides stability through its incredibly high requirements for repeal or amendments. Companies like Albertsons now have the stability they desired and will embrace these rideshare companies to save a few bucks by shifting a greater financial burden onto individual drivers.

Albertson's doesn't need it. They would use a third party AB 5 or not. It may cost more if AB 5 were in effect, but it's still less than having your logistics in-house.

Having someone else do your deliveries and such has been a thing for a long time. Companies have gone back and forth depending on who's doing the bean counting and what they think is crucial to business. Sometimes they would split it. Some in-house some hired out.

We are just going in circles now with the conversation and clearly I'm not going to change your mind.

How on earth can you say prop22 has provided any stability, when we are literally discussing an article bashing it, and with there being multiple ways of it being still repealed? Explain yourself.

Prop 22 is much more stable than AB5 because the requirements to change it are much more difficult to reach.

We are not talking about stability of AB5, but rather the situation before it. It was trivial for most other industries to get excemptions to AB5 (there are tens, if not close to 100 excemptions now). So what really changed with prop22 comapared to before AB5?

Answered here[1]

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25641580

Prop22 requires a 7/8 majority in the house to overturn (practically impossible).

You should research this more. Having even a possibility for voting to amend a law is not the normal. Usually proposition can't be overturned at all.