Most rational people probably agree that the medallion caps should be lifted; they were a deliberate attempt to stifle competition during the Depression. So, fix that problem. It's not a strong argument for deregulating taxi service. The regulated taxi service has huge problems as-is without making rules impossible to enforce:

* Taxi drivers tend to be unsafe drivers

* Taxi drivers tend to rip off their customers

* Taxi drivers tend to drive unsafe vehicles

There are so many cabs on the road, it's infeasible to address this problem car by car. One thing the medallion system does is to try to inject some accountability into the market, so that there's more to lose for being a scofflaw than just one car.

Note also that there's apparently a trend towards leasing medallions on a per-shift basis instead of in long-term leases, and that trend --- which is a step towards deregulation --- correlates with a decline of compliance and and increase in service complaints.

Whether or not I believe we should outlaw shadow cab dispatcher services, I think it's easy to make the argument that there's a real risk that they will hurt cab service for most people in the long run. But I mean, as long as they keep them out of New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, I don't really care.

> * Taxi drivers tend to be unsafe drivers

> * Taxi drivers tend to drive unsafe vehicles

That's for the insurance companies to settle. It's easy to imagine that "regular" liability insurance policies will prohibit commercial transportation of humans in the vehicle.

> * Taxi drivers tend to rip off their customers

Your "P2P Car Service" rating will plummet if you rip off your customers. By the same measure, eBay and Craigslist should be blatant failures.

That's obviously true, but I think you might be missing my points. Right now, they are:

(1) If you lose your million dollar medallion, you are out a million dollars (and likely the ability to ever get a medallion again). If you lose your P2P car service rating, you do what every scammer on every online market has done since 1995: you fake up a new one and game it with BS reviews.

(2) Many of the most severe costs of running a bad car service are externalities. I haven't had a valid drivers license in (checking...) THREE YEARS, and I drive every single day. I drive in a car with invalid plates. I get pulled over (checking...) NEVER. Take me, but make me a foreigner with no knowledge of the rules of the road, no knowledge of the city I drive in, and a record of hit and run accidents. I would do just fine in a P2P cab market.

Any system that would have me as a cab driver is one we should be skeptical of.

But these are all issues that a well-established P2P Car Service could handle. Require drivers to submit a current copy of their license, insurance claim history and registration for the car in question every 3-6 months. Make this information available on the website (except driver's lastname and address or whatever for privacy). Put a GPS logger in each car (if it's not on, you don't get paid). Charge exclusively on a point-to-point basis (e.g. let the driver carry the risk of going in circles).

Fine, but these are all issues that this P2P car service doesn't handle. You basically just designed a new privatized medallion system. Plenty of car services do exactly this; it seems like you just want them to have a REST web API, so someone can build the Kayak of private car service dispatchers.

Well yeah. That would be cool.

Anyway, in a point that relates to the OP, it would be that I hope lawmakers will see this as a cue to reform and privatise taxi-regulation.

If taxi medallions cost a million dollars (one sold for $600,000 last year -- http://www.autoblog.com/2007/06/01/nyc-taxi-medallion-sold-f... ) then they are clearly an example of rent-seeking behaviour that rips off the public. Why would a taxi medallion cost $600,000? Because, due to the artificial shortage of them, you can force customers to pay $600,000 more than they'd pay if market fares operated.

No.

Suppose you make a profit of P0 in a market with no medallion system, a profit of P1 in a market with a medallion system when you have no medallion, and a profit of P2 in a market with a medallion system when you have a medallion. Then that sale suggests that P2-P1 is at least $600k, but that doesn't tell us anything about P2-P0.

Probably P1 is approximately 0, at least for someone who's already got a substantial legal taxi business, since it's illegal to operate a taxi with no medallion. So we know that P2 is at least $600k. But we know nothing at all about P0; it might be just the same, or much less, or much more.

And, actually, we don't even really know that P2-P1 is at least $600k. The person who paid that much might be an idiot (unlikely) or a speculator who thinks others will foolishly be prepared to pay even more (not so unlikely); or he may think that he'll keep the medallion for a few years and then sell it for approximately the same amount. In that case, our lower bound on P2-P1 is something like 5% of $600k per year (taking 5% as a ballpark interest rate).

So: sorry, but I'm totally unconvinced. Am I missing something?

No, you're right. What I was saying was a shorthand and an (over)simplification.

You can still have a system of cab drivers who have medallions and guarantee better service and accountability, and let the market decide on which one they want to use.

There ought to be less heavy-handed, less obviously anti-consumer methods of regulating taxi services than what we have today.

IMO unlike Chicago, San Francisco needs a lot more cabs. Every time I've been there it's been nearly impossible to try to just walk down a street and hail a cab. Never had that problem in Chicago and I assume has plenty of cabs as well.

Chicago needs more cabs too, although San Francisco desperately needs more. Talk to a cab driver there sometime; there's some huge scam involving the dispatchers and the city government that artificially reduces the number of medallions.

To be clear: my argument isn't that current regulation is good. =)

Licensing is independent of rationing. Since the main purpose of licensing is to protect the consumer - in terms of money and safety - I think we're better off with it.