Yes, but the taxi companies aren't arguing that their regulations should be relaxed. They are arguing that they should apply to more people -- especially these new services like Uber that are doing well.

Regulation of industry creates government jobs. The governing body will not relinquish its regulatory capacity without a fight. The taxis are more likely to get Uber regulated then they are to get themselves deregulated. Rememebr that the government is itself an interested party. It isn't Uber Vs. Taxis. Its a triangle.

Agreed, but they also should make us examine the regulation of taxi services more skeptically.

Yes. They've helped us find that: no, once we have a reputation economy, we don't need the government to tell us who we can safely get in a car with.

And as Yelp, eBay, and other reputation sites have shown us, it turns out that reputation economies are useless once everyone rates every transaction/buyer/seller 5 stars.

You've never filtered for the bad reviews? Also, is it possible that you're only seeing the uninteresting storm of 5-stars because the "interesting" merchants don't survive? (I honestly have no idea if this is the case.)

Exactly. Now that we can make informed decision, we can excise the social/financial cost of regulation and its administration, in exchange for accepting the risk (of making our own informed decision).

I'm a progressive liberal fwiw, not a libertarian.

But "reputation economy" means someone gets to be the guinea pig.

I don't know -- that seems naive. This is not a new story.

From the Wikipedia entry on Guilds: As Ogilvie (2004) shows, the guilds negatively affected quality, skills, and innovation. Through what economists now call "rent-seeking" they imposed deadweight losses on the economy. Ogilvie says they generated no demonstrable positive externalities and notes that industry began to flourish only after the guilds faded away. Guilds persisted over the centuries because they redistributed resources to politically powerful merchants. On the other hand, Ogilvie agrees, guilds created "social capital" of shared norms, common information, mutual sanctions, and collective political action. This social capital benefited guild members, even as it hurt outsiders.

The heyday of guilds lasted from around 1200 to 1700...

well ask yourself this, how many jobs and services performed by people should require the permission of a governing agency? Far too many such agencies only exist now to restrict competition. Heaven forbid you try to get into the taxi business, or worse the moving business.

As in, where does it stop or where do we begin? Florist? Movers? Hairstylist? Nail care? Plumber?

How about you argue the issue at hand on its own merits instead of introducing red herrings? Taxis aren't like nail care. In many cities, particularly Atlanta, they serve as an important extension of the public transportation network, and are core to tourism and commerce. Heck, taxis are the reason why bars in the city, most of which are accessible only by car, can even pretend that they don't cater mostly to people who drink then drive.

Taxi services aren't regulated for the sake of limiting competition. They are given a monopoly in return for agreeing to be regulated as quasi-extensions of cities' transportation infrastructures.

While the regulations were at one time created to keep shady players out of the industry, Taxi services nowdays are most certainly regulated for the sake of limiting competition. Consider that in Manhattan in the 1950s there were roughly 13,000 taxi medallions. Today there are still only 13,000 medallions available- they sell at auction for a million dollars a piece.

The Taxi companies that own these medallions have gone to court many times to enforce the artificial scarcity that drives up the value of their golden geese.

A taxi driver in NYC has to pay $80,000 a year over and above his insurance and operating costs just for the right to operate a cab: that money goes straight into the pockets of medallion owners who don't much of anything except own medallions- until a threat like Uber comes along, wherein it's time to deliver brown paper bags filled with bundles of unmarked bills until the problem is solved. Both the drivers and the consumers are getting shafted.

NY is an extreme example, but the taxi industry works more or less same way in pretty much every city in the western world. It's not uncommon for incumbent businesses to hijack goodwill regulations as a way to stifle legitimate competition.

Now Uber and app-based livery services do need to be regulated- but their service is a whole different paradigm from the traditional taxi industry. In California progressive legislation has been passed that places these services in a completely different category than tradition taxi companies, much to the dismay of those taxi companies.

Uber is also expanding aggressively- their revenue has grown 20% per month over the past couple years, they started with 15 cars in 2009 and they are now valued at nearly 4 billion dollars, and operate in 60 countries. Every city they go into, they go into expecting a fight. They win some and they lose some. They were shut down in both Toronto and Vancouver. Uber is a fascinating company to watch- it's trench warfare everywhere they go- and they have mountains of venture capital backing them.

New York medallion owners are definitely milking the value of their monopoly, but it's really hard to make the consumers are getting shafted argument when Uber is much more expensive than traditional cabs.

The solution for Uber and the like isn't progressive regulation that puts them in a different category. Uber walks like a cab service and quacks like one, the only difference is a more modern method of hailing. Cities should deregulate their cab systems to increase supply, but categorize services like Uber within the same cab regime.

Also: the population of Manhattan is 25% smaller today than it was in 1950, so that means more medallions per person. Also, it has probably a lot more private cars.

Counterpart: Live in a jurisdiction which does not regulate any of the above and you'll quickly realize why all Western countries do so.

It's not about restricting competition, it's about very real concerns that are addressed by specific licensing regimes for each such industry. Tort law and market competition are useless, alone or together, in regulating low-entry-cost industries with high potential externalities. Licensing imposes capital requirements which make tort law and market competition feasible, along with guaranteeing certain other benefits to customers that increase the potential market of the industry.

All of the companies you listed already have licensing requirements.