In Italy, and in other European countries, the taxi prices are set by the city councils, not the taxi drivers.

The most depressing thing about public corruption is how cheap it is.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/price_trends_chart...

That shows a cost of 359,000 in 2006. More recent data is even crazier:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/avg_med_price_2013...

According to that, they cost a million dollars apiece these days.

The industry may be heavily regulated, but it does not seem to be rigged in favor of the customer.

If I knew I would get a ride in 15 minutes, I would snap at this in every city I travel to.

That's not to say that these regulations are beneficial or that regulations are needed at all here (I have no idea either way), merely that you can't judge the utility of regulations by letting them compete with deregulated industry and seeing which one wins.

So, if there's a new law that will cost 990 people $1 each and the other 10 people gain 99 each... it will pass, because for 99% of the people it's not even worth an hour of their time to rally against it. However, the 1% that benefit from it can afford to organize entire campaigns to convince the 99% that this new law is for their own good.

My point is simply that regulation can be overall good and that you can't detect this by having them compete, because even good regulation can't compete.

Can you please give one example?

The total cost of lead in the environment by far outweighs the economic benefits, which is why it's banned, yet for each individual person it makes economic sense to use leaded gasoline if you can.

I can't see "someone with a $0.0001 harm files suit against the aggressor" x 7b being a scalable solution without some kind of optimization. Maybe you could imagine some kind of little automated lawyer-agent which sues behind on your behalf, with everything happening at a micro-transaction level, but that seems kind of silly.

Evidence?

It has been shown rather conclusively that overexposure to lead in childhood leads to an increase in violent crime in adulthood. Banning leaded gasoline was the single most significant cause of the large decrease in violent crime in the US in the latter part of the 20th century. Here's one story on this [1]. Cites to peer reviewed journals are available from Wikipedia [2].

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/ban-on...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Toxicity

Why won't the unregulated company get sued if they dump their waste onto someone else's property (in/directly)?

It's a net-loss without some form of government regulation.

But, regulation is also a public good and therefore also a market failure... so you end up with regulations that harm 99% of the people, like in the case of Uber in France.

You're actually saying that the regulations on Uber hurt 99% of the people of France. Children? The mentally ill? Prisoners? Soldiers stationed overseas? Farmers? People too poor to afford taxis in the first place?

Hell, people outside the Uber areas of service, which is apparently just Paris?

Each of these demographic segments pretty much wholly have no interest in something like Uber, and slice off percentage point after percentage point. And even when you take your twenty/thirty/fortysomething urban parisian with the money for car hire, plenty have life patterns that don't need a taxi or uber - they walk or cycle or bus or train it about.

'99%' is utter, utter tosh, both in the literal, and more importantly, in the contextual figurative sense it was given.

Pollution is still a significant problem in LA.

> “Ozone and particle pollution contribute to thousands of hospitalizations, emergency room visits, and deaths every year,” Dr. Kari Nadeau, a Stanford Medical School professor and American Lung Association researcher, said when the State of the Air report was released. “Air pollution can stunt the lung development of children, and cause health emergencies, especially for people suffering from chronic lung disease, including asthma, chronic bronchitis, and emphysema. Both long-term and short-term exposures can result in serious health impacts.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/eco-nomics/2012/08/23/los-angele...

The numbers of people dying from car pollution is weirdly high, considering we don't hear much about it.

I get your point, but people decry the regulation that Uber is fighting against...until Uber implements free market "surge pricing". Then people are more than happy to leap back into the yellow cabs, which have their price regulated. Just read through some of the fallout.

In other words, all the free market vs regulation talk is lip service. People want what's best for themselves.

That is assuming they can find one. Surge pricing incentivizes drivers to actually show up and compensates them for tougher conditions and additional risk.

I get it, and I believe it's well within their right, and also an interesting strategy. I'm not really knocking Uber, I'm knocking some of its supporters.

Again, read through some of the comments on mainstream articles regarding the surge price kerfuffle. Filled with people saying, "Suck it Uber and your dynamic pricing! I took a regular taxi!" Meaning, they'll support the unregulated market, as long as it's cheaper.

People want more de-regulation, but fail to see the seemingly "good" that comes from regulation; in this case, predictable pricing when you're trying to get somewhere.

So? That's how the market and progress works. If a service can't stand up on it's own, it doesn't need to exist.

You might have a point when different industries with different built-in subsidies compete (taxis vs. buses or trains vs. planes). That's not the case here.

A single NYC taxi medallion goes for millions of dollars: http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/about/average_medallion_pri...

Most Taxi drivers have to rent one; which is not cheap. The medallion owners get to sit on their asses in rake in the cash.

Your concern is misplaced.

That said... the Uber black car drivers are licensed, only as private limo drivers rather than taxi drivers. They're not allowed to accept street hails. (Before smartphones, this meant having an advance reservation in place.) They're perfectly qualified to drive passengers.

And unlike most regular taxis I've experienced in the SF bay, Uber drivers aren't on their cell phone during the entire drive, so they're arguably safer drivers.

Ask the people who were priced out of transportation due to surge pricing what they think of the situation. Now imagine if Uber had driven all regulated taxis out of business and people were forced to pay exorbitant surge-pricing fees.

I'm not really against Uber or this strategy, but the "market" doesn't always sort things out fairly.

Schedule pickups in exactly 15 minutes with one touch. Countdown timer on the app, etc.

It scares me.

In the beginning (after signing up) a bunch of orders are created and sent out to the drivers. The orders technically exist, but the drivers are told to not show up right now. Then, at least 15 minutes later, the user can tap a "show up now" button which tells the driver to actually pick up the user. So in the end you have to wait 15 minutes when using the service for the first time, but after that it is a lot faster because the orders created in the beginning can be "activated" immediately.

There's an interesting business case study to be done between Uber and Hailo (based in London, far more popular there than Uber, expanding overseas), the latter of which was founded by cab drivers themselves and has taken a far more 'softly softly' approach to compliance (arguably at the expense of revenue, but the benefit of not having to deal with this kind of thing).

I'm uncertain whether the orders you speak of are reservations, or phonies with the purpose of circumventing the new bill. If the former is the case, drivers would still be unable to serve the greatest need - spontaneous rides. The latter could potentially work, but surely it would be caught eventually.

Sorry I will stop using that word now.

The UK may have its problems, but it's a breath of fresh air by comparison. It's no wonder 600,000 French people now live in London (and that's just the ones who registered at the embassy).

And you'll just order it 15min before your intended departure time

"In France, you have to pay a hefty price to get your taxi license"

How much does a taxi medallion cost in NYC again?

My first reaction is always to think that it's ridiculous; but then again maybe all those measures are only meant to minimize the casualties of progress, more than just being an obstacle to progress.

They are one in the same.

For example, (barring illegal searches or likely illegal 'stop and frisk') how do you enforce possession laws?

For example: If Uber drivers start illegally parking in common pickup areas waiting for a call, then picking people up within seconds, then this law will probably be the sort of thing that they use to slam the drivers harder.