The only people that have the money to compete have no desire to put workers first. They are just trying to establish a monopoly and drive existing, successful, more efficient and sustainable forms of transit out of business.
Uber and Lyft became so popular precisely because there are so many insensibly-regulated jurisdictions that made even this start-your-own-taxi-service illegal in order to create artificial scarcity. Highly-regulated medallion taxi services suck - both independent taxis as well as Uber are a threat to them because they're comprehensively better for customers. You literally have to legislate good service away for medallion taxis to work. And that's exactly what AB5 was.
If we don’t allow artificial scarcity/restrictions on number of cars on the road, maybe we should stop subsidizing fossil fuels too.
Impose a revenue-neutral carbon tax and you’ll address the externalities by encouraging more carbon efficient travel. Medallion taxis are a solution to exactly nothing.
AB5 has nothing to do with climate change. It’s grubby cartel-building disguised as labour-championing policy.
Its been my experience over the decades that when people say, "I can't do "x"", they really mean, "Doing "x" is going to be really, really hard and I don't want to work hard."
Second, you're right in part, I don't want to build another uber, but not because its hard work (I like hard work). It's just that ethically Uber is pushing our country in the wrong direction, furthering our dependence on private individual transit, while further burdening the worker and the environment.