The taxi-protecting laws and consumer-protecting laws are separate.

Uber could be regulated as a taxi service, just like pre-existing taxi services are. Consumer rights could be protected by the law.

However, in most places, there is a medallion system for officially-licensed taxis, which basically imposes a very high tax on anyone trying to operate as a taxi service.

Because Uber couldn't function within the medallion system, it was also shut out of consumer protection laws. But that doesn't mean things have to be that way. The problem is that allowing Uber around the medallion system essentially destroys a bunch of value already stored up in medallions.

Also, where else should someone editorialize, if not a comment on a social news site?

Most places don't have medallions, actually.

Uber fought pretty hard against consumer protection laws here in DC. For example, DC requires cabs to carry highr insurance and to get cars inspected more frequently.

The consumers who want the "rights" that taxis are supposedly providing are free to still use taxis. Of course, most consumers I've met think taxis are terrible (go figure, a monopoly leading to a terrible service).

Taxi's are terrible, Uber seems like a pretty lousy company but at least their service is pretty good.

I do wonder about their handling of issues like insurance.

Do you sincerely believe those laws make a better job in protecting customers than Uber's driver review system? I have caught various bad taxis, not a single good-rated bad Uber driver.

Regulations are, in general, extremely efficient at creating monopolies and utterly inefficient in protecting the customer.

> Regulations are, in general, extremely efficient at creating monopolies and utterly inefficient in protecting the customer.

Regulations are what keeps your food from making you sick on the spot, what keeps the air you breathe from melting your lungs, what lets you buy a new widget in confidence that it won't burn your house down. Regulations are extremely effective at protecting customers from abusive, greedy entrepreneurs. They're not perfect, and yes, with enough private money flowing into the process, they can create monopolies. But generally, they're good at their job.

People usually didn't get sick from food before there was regulation and people still sometimes get sick despite it. What they really do is allow you to trust unfamiliar merchants whose reputation you can't know and so expand the reach of commercial society. But just as the rise of trucking meant that rail travel was no longer a natural monopoly and could set its own prices tools like Uber mean it's now safe to use reputational systems with drivers for hire. If there were some universal registry of restaurants that everybody checked for health ratings before going in to eat then maybe we could worry less about regulating restaurants too. But I don't see that happening soon.

An important difference between this and things like pollution is that in the case of pollution the negative effects of the seller's malfience don't fall upon the purchaser but upon third parties who don't have any say in the matter, what's called an externality. That's another case where we really do need regulation for a good result.

Arguably more important than the consumer rights are the rights of the workers. There's no need to pay healthcare if you call your workers contractors, despite failing most of the IRS's tests for what role they fill.

Well taxi drivers are contractors as well and have no healthcare provided.

You don't have to pay healthcare for employees in general in the US, do you?

If they aren't contractors, they do if they work more than 30 hours a week.

Companies with fewer than 50 full-time employees do not have to provide health-insurance (though there are tax incentives and credits to do so).

As patio11 said a while ago, "in the battle between laws and software protecting consumer rights, consumers overwhelmingly chose software". The lawmakers are still fighting to roll this back, of course.

Friend, this is the editorial section.

If that's what the laws are for, they're doing a terrible job of it.

While you may be technically correct, where was my right to actually receive the thousands of taxis I've called over the years that never showed up in SF.

I was literally banned from all taxis in 2008 in SF as I would have to call four companies for a cab to my place in the presidio as they would never show up.

I wound up getting the numbers of various private black car drivers whom I could call upon at a moments notice to deliver me anywhere and they always showed up.

If these laws were designed to protect "consumers" I don't know what the fuck they are protecting!

I've used uber since they were born, and I've only ever had nothing short of a wonderful experience with them.

Whilst they may have certain business practices which people can complaint about - uber should be the text book example of how you disrupt an existing service.