I always figured the primary point of taxi regulation in Finland was to ensure that the service would be available even in remote areas that couldn't otherwise sustain it -- but Uber makes it far easier to service those as well.

It was obvious already when Uber was testing their service in Helsinki without adhering to any of the legal requirements.

But it's not just Uber - many other taxi companies operate in Finland already with comparable smartphone apps etc. And they also manage to do it without breaking the law ...

I have friends and family who live in the 'burbs. There are plenty of times I take a taxi over public transport, including:

    1. I'm in a rush
    2. I need to transport something not small
    3. I'm feeling lazy

Also a lot of public transport has moved to the "hub" model, where you have a central hub which connects different routes. While perhaps more efficient in some ways, it's incredibly inefficient for the traveller. It adds a minimum of 20 minutes to any journey where you have to go through a hub. My sister used to joke it takes an hour and 20 minutes to visit a friend living on a different tube line in London. My home town is either 3 lines switches away, adding an hour and a half of waiting to a journey, or I go through the London Hub, inexplicably having to pay a premium.

So while I like and appreciate our public transport, it can be a huge timesink and when you don't want to pay the "time tax" of public transport, taxis fill the role.

[1]I say at the moment as we can imagine a point in the future where you request public transport with your phone and it can on-the-fly accommodate you.

Last time I was in London for work I naively hopped in a Taxi at Paddington Station because I was late for a meeting and the tube would take 30 minutes. The taxi took 35 minutes and cost an order of magnitude more.

It seems that the moral of that story is that people should avoid travelling by car in places where roadways are congestioned.

*Not private hire vehicles, which are not legally considered taxis.

In any undeveloped capital you're forced to use a taxi (or unregulated alternative) to travel any significant distance. Getting anywhere can take hours (travelling at 5km/h is common), is dangerous and uncomfortable (AC is not even ubiquitous in 40c heat).

For example, all public transport in Finland will be required to provide a ticket sales API for these new apps. The app can sell you a trip from A to B and fulfill by ordering a taxi to the railway station plus a train ticket to your destination. Here's the press release for an open API from Helsinki Regional Transport Authority HSL: https://www.hsl.fi/en/news/2017/hsl-launch-worlds-first-publ...

You mean, cars don't scale in an urban environment.

The limits on the number of taxis is typically to force up the cost so the taxi drivers could make more, not to improve traffic.

Taxis have the advantage that you can use them very sporadically, so they're a good solution for a world with less cars.

I have exactly the opposite experience. Although public transport here is pretty good (by US standards, anyway - especially the subway system), I usually take the taxi. After all the apps appeared and started to compete with one another, it became extremely cheap (usual ride is about $3, expensive one is $6-7), clean and convenient.

And on top of it, taxis can use public transport lanes - so the traffic isn't that much of an issue.

Even where you have private companies building and operating metros, it's usually with the direction and financial support (such as land grants and loan guarantees) from governments.

Actually that's far from the truth. Any form of railway transport, with some notable exceptions like some french TGV lines, are absurd money sinks. The value of railway services in particular but public transportation systems in genetal manifest themselves mainly as externalities.

The problem with your argument is you seem to want all the benefits for yourself with zero drawbacks. Society doesn't work like this and successful societies will never work like this.

That's a page taken out of the fascist dictatorship's playbook. If your position was remotely defendable I'm sure that the best argument you could come up wouldn't be a variant of "if you don'agree with me then let me expell you from where you were born".