The problem is that even if you can't own a person wholesale anymore in this country, you can own the right to be the sole provider of one type of service to that person, and charge them exorbitant rates. To the taxi lobby, the citizens of New York are not free men, but their property as customers. Uber and the like are therefore dirty thieves, abolitionist usurpers.

The taxi lobby will also say that it's all for your own safety, even as unlicensed taxi drivers in licensed cabs proliferate. (fun story: I've had colleagues whose luggage was held hostage while driven to an ATM because the driver didn't want card payment because he wasn't driving the cab legally. good luck pursuing recourse for that.)

Your colleagues should/could have played the game. Just sit there, in the cab. Either he takes the payment that they offer or they get to leave. As long as they're sitting in the cab, it's not making any money.

Force him to decide to either take their payment or write off the loss from the ride because he can't get any other fares while they're occupying the seat. What's he going to do? Call the police and tell on himself?

Wait, I don't understand. Because this person used a term that you describe as a racist and derogatory term, you are claiming the entire taxi industry is racist? As I asked elsewhere, how is this term racist and derogatory?

(I agree with your first point.)

> As I asked elsewhere, how is this term racist and derogatory?

Gypsy is a racially problematic term.

Using that term to refer to unlicensed cabs links travellers (who may or may not be Roma) to crime and dangerousness.

If you care about this kind of stuff it's probably a good idea to move to phrases like "unlicensed cabs". You get some benefit it's more useful for an international audience.

"Gypsy" may also refer to Irish Travellers (Pavees), and possibly even to other insular nomadic cultures, not just Roma. I wouldn't be surprised if a travelling carnival worker had ever been called a gypsy.

The term itself is derived from Egyptian, which just goes to show how little people care about actual facts when labeling outsider groups.

And if you really want to be politically neutral as well as culturally neutral, "unofficial", "non-medallioned", "hackney", or "jitney" would be better than "unlicensed" or "illegal".

As I responded in the other post where I asked the question, under English law that is the definition of which is the version I was familiar with. Referring to nomadic person regardless of race or origin. I've never understood it to reference a particular race. Hence my confusion on why it would be a racist term. Derogatory I could understand, but not racist.

> you are claiming the entire taxi industry is racist?

When did I ever say that? I said the taxi industry is a protection racket. The person I replied to is spouting racist commentary.