I meant to contrast "ardent free market defenders," i.e., people in the libertarian end of the spectrum, with those concerned about predatory pricing, many of whom would not consider themselves opponents of the free market. "Ardent" is not, in the first place, pejorative.
It is (mildy, granted) pejorative in the description of a participant in a debate, especially when only one party is it.
Search for the truth is about collecting and reviewing evidence. Being passionate (synonym of ardent) about one side (rather than possibly the inquiry itself) is a bad quality.
It's not about offence. I'm not offended. I'm challenging your misrepresentation of a debate.
The idea that predatory pricing not only exists, but is prevalent, is the main plank of the argument that competition doesn't work and wont generally sort out bad behaviour in the market, so lots of people who ideologically need that to be true cling very dearly to that idea. On the other side of the debate are a lot of people with an incomplete appreciation of the complexity of what markets can and can't sort out, especially the pretty non-ideal ones we're stuck with in a world where among other things governments and regulations play, for better or for worse, a non-trivial role.
Lost in this mess is any nuanced discussion of when predatory pricing might and especially might not occur.
And now we're getting to the point. A reasonably free market for taxis (and a such can well include requirements for insurance, background checks and rigorous book keeping) will not allow predatory pricing to occur, and this is trivially easy to show. This does not mean that predatory pricing doesn't or can't exist, just that it certainly can't on a market with these characteristics.
Well, I don't think you disagree that much with the folks at this site. Their idea is that Uber may be able to drive competitors out of business with predatory pricing, but they won't be able to keep more competitors from coming back as soon as they raise prices.
