Because for several years now there has been a much stronger meme in place in the business community -- particularly among "disruptive" technology startups -- that you don't really have to pay attention to pesky things like laws and ordinances.

And not only that -- if you can just eat the petty civil fine they slap on you, you're actually doing a positive moral good in presenting a middle finger to law if it enables you to bring your desperately needed innovations to a wider audiences.

So that's when people start to say -- "OK then - if they won't get the message, it's time to start locking a few of 'em up."

Just like you'd do with any other criminal gang.

Meh. I can think of better uses for my tax money than using it to lock up people for running an unauthorized ride-sharing service.

The original article refers to harassment of opponents in a civil litigation case -- not running a grey-market service, per se.

I think the same about drug dealers, although I disagree that rich tech boys breaking the law isn't a big problem.

(Shrug) Given the set of "big problems" in the world, I'm having trouble agreeing with you that this is one of them. But I don't own any taxi medallions, so I may be biased.