Because sometimes you're dealing with a bad law.

If that's the case, then the company should have been lobbying to have the law changed, instead of brazenly disregarding it and making money from having an unfair competitive advantage.

Personally I don't have any problem with disregarding a bad law. YMMV.

Allowing people to ignore laws that they perceive as bad does not work on the scale of a society. What if, tomorrow, I decide that the Penal Code is a "bad law" and start to kill people because I disregard this law?

We live in a free society and therefore we have the freedom to disregard any law that we consider "bad". But we must also face the consequences of our actions.

There's a pretty simple standard for dealing with what is a good law, versus a bad law, that we should just adhere to. But instead of restating what has been said before (and better), I'll just leave this link here.

http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html

and this quote:

* What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.

This may surprise you, but humans aren't computer programs. They generally come with individual consciences and can decide what is right and wrong. It is insulting (almost a Godwin's law violation) to compare murder with the "crime" of disregarding arcane taxi regulations. It's very clear to everyone involved that the taxi regulations in question are designed mostly to protect the profits of a few fat cats who own license medallions (no, NOT drivers... most taxi drivers don't own medallions.) And taxi drivers were almost always contractors even before Uber came on the scene, so all the whining about how exploitive it is to be a contractor, etc. etc. is completely misinformed.

I think you may have found yourself in the wrong thread. This one us about Zenefits creating a computer program to cheat a licensing scheme.

Define "bad law". A law you disagree with? What about those you agree with, but others don't?