> How do you know? My impression is that most taxi drivers are very busy adapting. But I don't know either.

To be clear: I don't know either. I'm an outsider to this industry. I'm just offering arguments.

> Let's be clear: The people hardest hit by Uber/Lyft is taxi company owners.

I don't think this is true. They're losing the most money, but they have lots of money. Taxi drivers risk losing all their revenue, which is worse.

> Uber has been around for half a decade. How many decades does it take?

I think this is the hardest question. According to the people behind this bill, half a decade is not enough. I agree with that judgment.

Taxi drivers risk losing the difference between what they can earn working as a taxi driver and what they can earn on ride sharing apps. It's probably a fair drop but hardly all of their income.

Generally you pay for some kind of permit to be a taxi driver. A quick google suggests in excess of 150KUSD:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2015/08/05/what-about-taxi...

So they potentially have a lot to lose...

Generally you rent a permit/work for a company that owns them as a taxi driver. If there are taxi drivers buying medallions then they're 1) a small minority and 2)effectively business owners that are making a capital investment. Part of why one gets a return on investments is that they're assuming risk.

It is definitely unfair that a completely new class of competition is allowed which doesn't have to pay this 150k "medallion" fee. Instead of this 20c fee it would be fair to either reimburse the 150k fee to existing owners of taxis or have uber/lyft pay the same fee. Competition should be fair.

Oh and all the regulation should be the same for taxi vs ridesharing like insurance requirements (commercial insurance is much higher which taxis are required to carry) and inspection requirements etc.

"New York City cab medallions, which sold for as much as $1 million a year ago, now are priced at the $500K level, battered by competition from Uber, Lyft.

Some Independent owners, having paid upwards of $1 million, are “under water” by hundreds of thousands of dollars on the mortgages they owe on the medallions."

http://www.odwyerpr.com/story/public/6471/2016-03-08/uber-ly...

Uber is more than a year old, and investors speculating on $1 million medallions should have factored in the risk of losing that gamble...

What was the point of the medallion system in the first place?

Half a decade is not enough? How long did it take taxi drivers to learn to be taxi drivers in the first place? Surely not 5 years. Moving into another career/job/position will certainly take time to transition, learn, and train, but 5+ years is a long time. I know many people who are in wildly different jobs, different fields in much less time than that.

> How do you know? My impression is that most taxi drivers are very busy adapting. But I don't know either.

The taxi driver I was taking with was mostly adapting to special-purpose taxi services like delivering IKEA furniture. That already meant a big revenue cut for him in contrast to normal taxi service.

I asked him about Uber and he said last time it was completely impossible to make living for him based on the revenue you get from Uber routes.

Self-driving cars weren't even part of the long-term plan back then...

Since the bill goes to 2026, right now the answer appears to be approximately 1.5 decades by their judgement.