Although I dislike some of Uber's business practices, I really admire their "fuck you" attitude when it comes to ignoring taxi regulations. Taxi regulations are some of the most bullshit, customer-hurting, corrupt laws people are exposed to on a daily basis. They're a clear example of how overregulation can cause a precipitous drop in quality of service without tangible benefit.
Uber, Lyft, and co. managed to realize huge gains in productivity and quality with no significant negative side effects.
The opposite is however true - completely unregulated carrier countries - places like India -- the result is barely function death traps driven by terrible drivers, resulting in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of passengers every year.
Taxi regulations, bus regulations, charter van regulations are all there to save lives and prevent a race towards the bottom economy of transportation. And when a mother and child's only chance of getting into town in on the back of a death machine - these regulations start to look very good indeed.
Uber seems to be doing a pretty good job of providing a quality, safe service not just without regulations but despite them.
The regulations as they stand seem to primarily protect the entrenched businesses, not consumers. And our current legislative does not appear to provide any sort of reasonable mechanism to modify said regulations without first flipping the bird and demonstrating clear, intense consumer demand.
All good points in Uber's favor. I think you are right that with the right technology, so regulatory requirements disappear. I especially liked Uber's dissection of the Las Vegas Tunnel fiasco. Technology, when used correctly, was superior to regulation, and penalties.
The argument that Uber is providing reasonable service despite regulations does not justify removing them.
In a city like New York, where traditional taxi services are deeply entrenched, Uber must provide service that is at least as good as the status quo. The guarantees that the state enforces to protect consumers in registered taxi services serve as baseline, and Uber knows this. If that baseline did not exist, that is, if Uber were competing only against unregulated commercial services, there would be a race to the bottom, and suddenly New York would start looking a lot like Bangalore.
In this way, regulation improves things even to those who use services that are not regulated.
What's wrong with a race to the bottom? Big corporations often run with a profit margin of only 1 to 4 percent. That's great for consumers. Drive those prices as low as they can go. Excellent!
People keep using the phrase "protect consumers". How, exactly? In very precise words please. Making drivers hold appropriate insurance, excellent. That protects me as a consumer. Having extremely constrained medallions that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars? No, that does not protect me as a consumer at all. Forcing Uber to do this bullshit independent driver hack also does not protect me or provide value. It would be far superior if drivers were regular employees of Uber but that puts them under heavy regulation which protects established business players far, far, far more than it protects or serves the consumer.
The fact that death traps should be kept off of roads is entirely independent of regulations specific to taxis.
I'm perfectly happy with a race to the bottom in generic 'get me there cheap' service. The alternative is being forced to pay for a more luxurious transportation whether I want it or not.
Just about the only thing I see as a valid use of taxi regulations is a requirement to pick people up independent of destination. But it's a really inefficient way of handling the situation.
> Just about the only thing I see as a valid use of taxi regulations is a requirement to pick people up independent of destination. But it's a really inefficient way of handling the situation.
How about transporting blind people with their guide dogs?
Uber, Lyft, and co. managed to realize huge gains in productivity and quality with no significant negative side effects.