>Dude. I owned and drove cabs for many years. Medallions and licensing started in NY after the taxi wars. Regardless they were restrictive laws and rules (including pricing) that Taxis MUST follow or risk fines and closure Your taxi is owned by taxicab company that lobbied for these rules. Businesses don't hate restrictive regulations if those rules monopolize their industry and put their competitors out of business. >while Uber got to do literally whatever it wanted however it wanted, and the law enforcers profited by pay offs Uber bought themselves out of freedom - there's nothing wrong with this. >while the people suffered because as soon as the cabs folded the Uber rates went up and the money rather than staying locally went to silicon valley California. That's not Uber's fault, that's the fault of the rules and regulations placed by city and state governments on taxis. Consumers spend money on what they choose - and they clearly chose Uber over taxis. City and state governments deserve to lose money that could be spent locally because they were the ones that made their local economies noncompetitive. In this case, it's good that Silicon valley California gets this money and not the local economies. For some reason, you absolutely despise Uber for competing in a market economy, and winning, rather than hating the local and state governmental regulations that made the taxicab businesses, among others, noncompetitive. It seems like you're more anti-Uber, anti-Silicon valley, and trying to find whatever excuse to 'punish' them. You approve of Uber getting regulated, in the name of "fairness", but don't even want to consider the possibility of deregulating the entire industry, and allowing free market competition, which would not only restore fairness, but also benefit consumers in both the short and long terms.

Decades ago, taxi companies lobbied for those protections (medallions and licensing) that necessarily limited competition in the taxi market. Previously, in the decade following the mass introduction and production of the car, there was no limit on taxi businesses, and anyone with a car could operate as a taxi, and anyone could start a taxi company. Its good that Uber freed themselves from the taxicab monopoly by paying off those in charge - that's the only way they get to reclaim their rights and freedom. We get the benefits of their innovation and forward-thinking every time we take a nice, cheap, quick and convenient Uber rather than an expensive taxicab that has no incentive to treat the customer right.

Perks of market competition!

In most cases, the cab owners and cab companies lobbied for (and got) protections from market competition from the government