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>Prop 22 which was passed on the backs of a nearly $200m campaign You mean, passed on the backs of nearly 10 million voters. I always find it strange to tout

>Prop 22 which was passed on the backs of a nearly $200m campaign You mean, passed on the backs of nearly 10 million voters. I always find it strange to tout the line of how much money was spent in an election, as if to say that the voters have no agency or culpability. Clinton spent nearly 2 times what Trump did and still lost. Money does not equal votes if the people don't support an issue.

slg 6y ago
Money buys votes at the margin. Everyone agrees on this including the people who supported Prop 22 otherwise they wouldn't have spent some $175m more than their opponents.
- Anon1096 6y ago
  That doesn't mean the voters were brainwashed into supporting something they otherwise wouldn't have.
  - slg 6y ago
    Why do you think these companies spent roughly $175m more than their opponents if they didn't think it would help them win?
  - bsder 6y ago
    Many were practically blackmailed. Uber/Lyft/DoorDash etc. threatened to summarily shut down in the middle of a pandemic if Prop 22 didn't get passed. Uber and Lyft actually did this in Austin, but since it wasn't in the middle of a pandemic people had other options and could make adjustments. And then Uber and Lyft went crying to the state government to override Austin because Austin started generating alternatives and we found out that Uber/Lyft don't really have an unassailable position but they have LOTS of VC cash to spend on lobbying and advertising. Unfortunately, making the kind of adjustments that people in Austin did borders on impossible right now, so this kind of threat was quite effective.
deleted 6y ago
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redis_mlc 6y ago
> Clinton spent nearly 2 times what Trump did and still lost. That election is a bad example since: - Trump was already a TV and Twitter celebrity brand. - Hillary Clinton was an unlikeable candidate who was ill, financially corrupt (received large Saudi contributions to her foundation) and avoided reporters for 2 months during the campaign (similar to Biden in 2020) I've seen estimates that Trump added $2 billion in value to Twitter, so Trump also got some advantage out of that relationship. What's interesting is that SV ad companies denied knowing that Trump was underspending until their end of quarter, then blamed their poor results on that saying, "Who knew?" In fact, anybody who read a newspaper knew, so it was odd hearing that nonsense from people paid millions to know that.

slg 6y ago

Money buys votes at the margin. Everyone agrees on this including the people who supported Prop 22 otherwise they wouldn't have spent some $175m more than their opponents.

Anon1096 6y ago
That doesn't mean the voters were brainwashed into supporting something they otherwise wouldn't have.
- slg 6y ago
  Why do you think these companies spent roughly $175m more than their opponents if they didn't think it would help them win?
- bsder 6y ago
  Many were practically blackmailed. Uber/Lyft/DoorDash etc. threatened to summarily shut down in the middle of a pandemic if Prop 22 didn't get passed. Uber and Lyft actually did this in Austin, but since it wasn't in the middle of a pandemic people had other options and could make adjustments. And then Uber and Lyft went crying to the state government to override Austin because Austin started generating alternatives and we found out that Uber/Lyft don't really have an unassailable position but they have LOTS of VC cash to spend on lobbying and advertising. Unfortunately, making the kind of adjustments that people in Austin did borders on impossible right now, so this kind of threat was quite effective.

deleted 6y ago

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redis_mlc 6y ago

> Clinton spent nearly 2 times what Trump did and still lost. That election is a bad example since: - Trump was already a TV and Twitter celebrity brand. - Hillary Clinton was an unlikeable candidate who was ill, financially corrupt (received large Saudi contributions to her foundation) and avoided reporters for 2 months during the campaign (similar to Biden in 2020) I've seen estimates that Trump added $2 billion in value to Twitter, so Trump also got some advantage out of that relationship. What's interesting is that SV ad companies denied knowing that Trump was underspending until their end of quarter, then blamed their poor results on that saying, "Who knew?" In fact, anybody who read a newspaper knew, so it was odd hearing that nonsense from people paid millions to know that.