Monopolies shouldn’t exist, we probably agree there too. I think the problems with urban cabs (in North America) are best solved by flooding the market with medallions, which has always been the artificially scarce resource that has driven up prices. Medallions locally, before Uber, usually cost about 10x the cost of the cab itself. And that was just for the medallion, cash that went to the last medallion holder… that is capitalism gone wrong.
Meters can easily be modernized, and the conflict resolution can be made more fair, within the existing system. Modernizing that will make enforcement and auditing easier, and the costs to achieve these improvements have never been lower. Your proposed app could go so much further! That app could do the documentation, and you could probably automatically get a reduced fare on the spot, if the driver is that awful or inefficient. Heck, it could hail you another cab, from a different company, if the first cab wasn’t making it on time, and that would be transpartent to you. You could probably ask such an app from a ride only from one of your favorite providers, and avoid Bills Cab Company because you had a bad time with Bill that one time. That seems fair.
I’m glad that change will come, but I don’t think Uber is doing us any favors by undercutting people trying to make an honest living who follow the local laws to the letter, by undermining law enforcement with data manipulation, and by maintaining such opaqueness about who their drivers are. background chaecks are hardly onerous, but you;d think it was cutting off their left hand the way they go on ahistorically about how ANY regulation is too disruptive to their brilliant new business model.
Thanks for bringing this back on topic.
