This seems like a non-sequitur. The business model was made illegal by people who were voted into office to make business models like these illegal.
Uber isn't wrong to push the letter of the law, but no one should be surprised that it will take a little bit of time for the law to adapt to this. Uber's vicious and cavalier attitude towards law in general is really disgraceful.
This seems like a classic "ends justify the means" type of scenario, and I'm generally skeptical of these.
Although I am a big proponent of spreading the word about Regulatory capture, it's not quite that simple. A lot of the regulations that exist for taxis really do make sense, given a few contexts:
1) you don't know who is coming to pick you up
2) the ability to contact your former driver in the event of a bad experience is almost nil
3) you have to trust the taximeter
4) taxis have to jockey for a visual hail
5) there is no guarantee that a dispatched taxi will actually arrive.
while there are concerns (e.g. safety, insurance) that do warrant a strong rational basis for regulation that are in common between taxis and lyft/uber, etc - a lot of the regulations that are in place do not carry over and those shouldn't apply to the lyft/uber.
To its credit, the state of california seems to be making an (if slow) rapprochement between the existing regulation set and a reasonable set... Don't know about other places.
One can decry Uber's asshole spirit and questionable business practices while applauding the political change their unpleasant activity is accomplishing.
But people didn't vote people in because of their stance on taxis, apart from small vested interest groups. For most people this wasn't even an agenda they thought about, but because Uber exists, and they see an alternative to the rubbish taxi companies, it's coming to the spotlight.
Yes, right now that seems to be the case. Taxi systems were notoriously bad before regulation, so it's not true to say that Uber is illegal only because of a deeply entrenched monopoly.
Things were seriously rough in NYC (and elsewhere) before the government stepped in. I expect it to take some time to adapt to a things like Uber/Lyft, and Uber's attitude towards that reality is disappointing.
Then again, it is basically the word of Silicon Valley gods to be as blatantly disrespectful of reality as possible.
It's just a hunch at this point, but I suspect the end game for personal transportation a few decades down the road will be government-provided rides.
Cities, counties, whatever municipal entities providing autonomous vehicles at subsidized rates, or maybe even "free". These are the entities paying for the infrastructure, after all, and once voters don't own vehicles, the argument will start to be made that governments should operate what what runs on the infrastructure.
But that's decades away, and there's money to be made now, in the current system. And Uber/Lyft/Google whoever else is in the business may provide the tech to the governments.
Anyway, like I said, it's just a hunch at this point, but it won't surprise me if things slowly move that way.
That's an interesting perspective. Honestly seems like a future I could get excited about, despite bureaucratic inefficiencies and edge cases of govt screwups.
A world where transit is dominated by things like Uber is a world where those who can't (or don't want to) afford $600 phones + $50/month service charges can't navigate a city.
Uber isn't wrong to push the letter of the law, but no one should be surprised that it will take a little bit of time for the law to adapt to this. Uber's vicious and cavalier attitude towards law in general is really disgraceful.
This seems like a classic "ends justify the means" type of scenario, and I'm generally skeptical of these.