Normally I'd consider your comment unhelpful and downvote it.

But discussions like this are loaded with people who assure us that certain ultra-common behavior "is illegal", as if that somehow settles it, so I'm going to tolerate otherwise content-free reminders that this is not true.

Yup, I feel pretty strongly about the point I was making and, to be honest, I think it did have content despite my sardonic delivery.

I replied above to this. I don't disagree with you, but I think the sentiment is misplaced.

Well, you should still report them.

I see what you're saying. There are two fallacies at play:

1) same logic that people use to reason out of voting (it doesn't matter if I do x because it hasn't mattered before). 2) the logic that because it's illegal means it isn't permitted (which is, as you stated, not always true).

I'm not sure if it truly matters if people report taxis. What I am sure about is it will never matter if no one cares to report them to begin with. This works for any system.

I think I (and those who agreed with me) failed to convey the subtext of our objection, which is:

We don't care about illegality per se. We care about "not making the bad thing happen". If illegality accomplishes that, great! But if it doesn't, then it is non-responsive to our concerns to remind us that it does. It's like if you're going to friends talking about problems you encounter, and all they ever tell you is, "Well that's not supposed to happen".

The process of enforcing the illegality puts a lot of burden on the customer, and your response recognizes that it requires people going far out of their way.

In practice, a system that requires most individuals to make heroic sacrifices is the same as a system that just doesn't work.