Even if the cabbies as a group wanted the medallion system at some point in time the guy who took his own life probably didn't create it. He was just "playing the game as it had been created". Then all of a sudden when he is pretty much all in, some VC decides to change the rules of the game. If someone comes along to "disrupt" the market (which just happens to be your life) and is willing to burn billions and billions of dollars on it (Uber has yet to make a dime of profit) I can imagine one would become desperate....