> The rules were not broken because they were unfair - that's a meme - you don't get to pass arbitrary judgement of which laws you do and do not respect (in theory).

Thank goodness it was only in theory. The taxi industry was and is terrible, the only thing propping it up is regulatory capture.

> As a business, if you do not like the legal environment (rules) of a certain location, the logical (and respectable) choice is to not operate in that region/location.

As a consumer, I'm glad that the rules were systematically broken in a way that benefitted everyone except the taxi industry.

> in a way that benefitted everyone

I can definitely get aboard the taxi hate train, but do bear in mind that there has been a higher incident of sexual assaults tied to uber drivers over taxi drivers - it's not a free win for everyone, they broke both rules intended for regulatory capture and those intended for public safety.

This is counter to my experience. Every one of my female friends prefers Uber to taxi's because they feel much safer. They've all had at least one taxi incident where they were afraid for their well being but haven't had a single one with Uber despite using Uber far more.

This makes sense to me because it's far easier to track down the an Uber driver than a taxi driver.

I'd love to see the statistics. That aside, the taxi industry collects zero feedback from customers on their drivers, so taxi drivers had no incentive to be polite, keep their vehicles clean, etc. The worst uber driver I've had was about on par with the best cab drivers.

Not sure about other jurisdictions, but in Chicago, you can call 311 to report a taxi driver. Just need the cab number. I called a few times when cabs nearly struck me as a pedestrian in a crosswalk with a walk signal. Couple of them, I was close enough that I was able to smack a window. Don't know if anything ever happened from those complaints, you dont get feedback after a complaint.

> higher incident of sexual assaults tied to uber drivers over taxi drivers

citation with statistics? I don't know what world you lived in, but there was no lack of local news stories involving crimes by taxi drivers pre-ridesharing and there is a reason why taxi drivers were commonly suspects on crime drama shows like Law&Order.

The lack of meaningful comparison in every article on the topic always bugged me. I'd believe Uber was worse. I'd believe Uber was better. I'm reading your article partly because I want to know which.

Don't forget that Uber is operating at a huge loss. (And it seems they can't even get rid of the competition that way.)

These are good times for the consumer, but of course the situation won't be this way forever.

Not necessarily true. Uber the company maybe operating at a loss but rides are not operating at a loss AFAIK. Kind of like Amazon in its earlier days, where they reinvested their revenue in growth.

Could be true, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a clever accounting trick.

There are no real magical accounting tricks. At the end of the day (quarter) you will be forced to account for your cashflow. Cashflow always gives the at the moment reality of the company. Before folks reply - Amazon doesn't count. Amazon is an enigma.

Not a big fan of Uber, but on the other hand a lot of cities were operating crony "taxi medallion" rackets that were enriching vested taxi interests and speculators, but hurting drivers and riders.

Ridesharing is more convenient, safer, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly. There's less idling, less aimless driving, less congestion, more carpooling, no clumsy exchange of cash or credit cards, the reputation of drivers is visible, and the ride is fully tracked so your whereabouts are known.

> The rules were not broken because they were unfair - that's a meme - you don't get to pass arbitrary judgement of which laws you do and do not respect (in theory).

This is really problematic for me. If you restrict the scope rightly to only democracies that are truly representative (which many regulatory capture environments are not) I might be able to agree. But many governments in the world are not nearly legitimate enough to deserve this respect.

I have no issue with individuals, businesses, revolutionaries and other for profit or not for profit companies trying to undermine the dictates, decrees, laws or rules or whatever you want to call them of oppressive or authoritarian governments.

Taken to a logical extreme, this justifies for profit companies supporting and entrenching dictatorships, under the excuse of “we were just following the law”.

This is an intensely slippery slope, allowing companies to pick and choose which laws to follow is dangerous - would you be okay with sweatshops existing in the US because it allowed the companies to make more profits? What about outright slavery?

Laws are the social contract that we've all agreed to - I am totally in agreement that a lot of laws were created through corrupt government action, but giving free reign to any private entity to ignore laws they find onerous pretty much removes lawful society.

>Laws are the social contract that we've all agreed to

We have? I may go through the actions of consenting because I fear the repercussions of not doing so, but no part of me consents to giving the average person the right to harm me because of their personal beliefs.

You have, yes. It's one of the oddities and tyrannies of human society but you are beholden to the laws of your locale without ever explicitly agreeing to them - as a dual citizen it was really interesting for me when I went through the process of agreeing to a new set of laws.

The tyranny of this process is that all of the activities you go through on a daily basis are only possible because of this contract and, having grown up within this contract, if you were to leave it it would require you to invest massively in self-sufficiency (the real kind, not "I can grow a garden"), a skill that is not only excluded from general education (both within a scholastic setting and within more traditional knowledge passing routes) nearly everywhere in the world - but is often actively discouraged by societal norms.

This, I think, is a pretty good thing, because all of us being hunter gatherers who fought over bountiful locales would be a lot less interesting than knowing things like agriculture, computers and boats exist.

>You have, yes.

I hope you can see the issue telling someone they consented when they tell you they have not.

>you are beholden to the laws of your locale without ever explicitly agreeing to them

And yet we are free to break them as long as we are not caught.

>if you were to leave it it would require you to invest massively in self-sufficiency

I doubt so, because I find avoiding society is not an option. I guess if you can build your own rocket and launch yourself into space it is possible, but anywhere else in the world and you are subject to the local laws generally set by whomever has the biggest stick. I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but there was one day, not too long ago on the historical scale, where the ability to really live away from people self sufficient became impossible.

I guess there are some places you might be able to move to, not pay taxes on, and be so remote that they don't bother enforcing the laws on you. But that still depends on the idea of breaking laws as long as you can avoid any punishment you find unbearable.

>This, I think, is a pretty good thing, because all of us being hunter gatherers who fought over bountiful locales would be a lot less interesting than knowing things like agriculture, computers and boats exist.

Society has it's benefits, and yet I do wonder if every law was fully enforced would it continue to function? Think of work to rule, at national scale. Laws seem to be a sort of selectively enforced tax that helps keep society from crumbling, but even that isn't guaranteed since it seems to also give us the ability to crumble society in a way that hunter gatherers could never imagine.

All you are saying is the laws are enforced (to some degree) not that we agreed to them, and the fact that I live within a system of rules doesn't mean I agree with all of those rules. Show me a social contract with my signature on it and I will agree with you. Otherwise, I will happily subvert those rules I disagree with where safely possible. Jaywalkers of the world unite!

"People and companies can make judgements about the fairness of laws" does not imply "and they are always correct."

>This is really problematic for me. If you restrict the scope rightly to only democracies that are truly representative (which many regulatory capture environments are not) I might be able to agree.

Even then I cannot. The majority can be wrong at times and a bad law, even one with majority support, is a bad law. In such cases the only value to following such a law is to reduce risk of enforcement (and there is plenty enough evidence that following the law is no defense against being harmed by those who enforce the law).

It is my understanding that many places distinguished between hailed services and on call services, but Uber was able to do on call at an unexpected scale?

I am sure you can dig up illegal acts, but the secret sauce was the new dynamic that bent what people thought was possible at scale.

>In the past (pre-Uber), if you made this amount of money by engaging in large-scale, coordinated law breaking, you were called a gangster and got a big old nice RICO charge.

I'm thinking this isn't actually true. In some cases you definitely were. In others, you become the dominant player and enjoyed becoming wealthy.

What exactly divided the former from the latter? I wish I understood that better.

If they had been operating an illegal business model then they would have long ago lost in court. That they've succeeded means that it's fundamentally legal...

They have been fined, banned and kicked out of the countries all around the world because they showed no respect to local laws and customs.