I think, the primary reason to be mad about this is that the law in no way helps any one. It even seems like it will end up being a law that has negative effect

I think, the primary reason to be mad about this is that the law in no way helps any one. It even seems like it will end up being a law that has negative effects. California affiliates will be cut-off by Amazon. So the affiliates either move their business out of state or they stop their business entirely. In either case, the state loses out on taxes that it currently gets from these affiliates. People buying from Amazon will continue buying from Amazon. So the local and big-box retailers do not really benefit. It is only the small subset of people who don't know about certain Amazon products and who might have come to know about them because of the various sites or blogs based on using Amazon affiliate links will now not know about these and contribute to buying from Amazon. So it makes sense to be mad that our lawmakers are spending time and effort on a useless law during a time of budget crisis.