Well said. I find it absurd how much local governments interfere with local markets, like with taxis. I see no good reason (that will survive scrutiny with Kant's Categorical Imperative) to legislate the number of taxis in a certain area, like with medallions, or charge a high price for them. It's effectively corruption and regulatory capture. It's anti-competitive and has, by my analysis, no redeeming qualities that could not be accomplished better another way.
I don't see a reasonable avenue for a company like Uber to change the laws ahead of time. They only have the traction and resources that they do because of their bias for action. A no-name startup petitioning the city to drop their taxi legislation because the model is "wrong" will get nowhere. I don't see how Uber could ever have come about with that approach.
Additionally, I am also not convinced that Uber's model falls under taxi legislation by writing or intent. I do not believe that taxi legislation is attempting to control for the same problems. Taxis pick up random people on the streets, with effectively zero relationship ahead of time, and lots of opportunity for individual consumer ripoff. People who use Uber have established a relationship with the company ahead of time, before they need a ride. They have chosen to use Uber specifically. The same choice and discrimination is not part of hailing a cab on the street. Uber offers a consistent price to people in an area, and its well-known brand has a reputation to which people can associate bad or good experiences: for the company as a whole, through their speech, and for specific drivers, with the ratings system.
That said, I do also have concerns about Uber's attitude and their intimidating and disruptive tactics toward the press, competitors, etc. They have not comported themselves well enough to deserve the moral high ground, though I will tend to side with them anyway on these legislative issues because taxis are so dysfunctional.
That's a good point - if Uber should fall under Taxi law, so should SuperShuttle and various other airport shuttle services. Once there is already a consumer relationship in place, there is no need to protect consumers more than with the normal anti fraud protection.
I don't see a reasonable avenue for a company like Uber to change the laws ahead of time. They only have the traction and resources that they do because of their bias for action. A no-name startup petitioning the city to drop their taxi legislation because the model is "wrong" will get nowhere. I don't see how Uber could ever have come about with that approach.
Additionally, I am also not convinced that Uber's model falls under taxi legislation by writing or intent. I do not believe that taxi legislation is attempting to control for the same problems. Taxis pick up random people on the streets, with effectively zero relationship ahead of time, and lots of opportunity for individual consumer ripoff. People who use Uber have established a relationship with the company ahead of time, before they need a ride. They have chosen to use Uber specifically. The same choice and discrimination is not part of hailing a cab on the street. Uber offers a consistent price to people in an area, and its well-known brand has a reputation to which people can associate bad or good experiences: for the company as a whole, through their speech, and for specific drivers, with the ratings system.
That said, I do also have concerns about Uber's attitude and their intimidating and disruptive tactics toward the press, competitors, etc. They have not comported themselves well enough to deserve the moral high ground, though I will tend to side with them anyway on these legislative issues because taxis are so dysfunctional.