In most cities?
No, he can't, as long as he's not willing to charge their prices.
He has no leverage past making bad PR for the cities.
Being friendly isn't going to get him anywhere with most of these types of regulatory snags.
It's very hard to negotiate with folks when what they want is your death. The compromise is what, exactly? That they only half-kill you for now until the rest of your support base erodes?
He's playing a giant game of chicken, because sometimes that's the only way to hope to win.
But, in the end, as the saying goes "You can always tell who the pioneers are because they have arrows in their back and are lying face down in the dirt."
The most likely outcome is status quo stays status quo, unless Uber can make enough noise/etc to matter.
Uber has a great algorithm to help supply meet demand through variable pricing.
They did forget to account for emergencies.
During the NYC blackouts not long after 9/11, not a single supermarket or corner grocer raised their prices.
I'm sure Uber has learned, and will have a plan in place next tme.
I am concerned about Travis' ability to beat the regulators here. He's taking an us vs. them approach.
May be necessary in reality - in fact, I bet it is.
But I wonder if he can get further by being outwardly less combative/aggressive.