[geofft]

But that sort of approach is effectively permission for an equally-well-funded unethical company that wants to disrupt an industry full of ethical business practices.

That's one of the biggest reasons that laws have publicly disclosed punishments associated with breaking them: they dissuade other people from breaking the law. If the penalty is low, and not because the people of California said that Uber should not be penalized (which presumably they can easily do), that communicates to everyone else who might want to break similar laws that the penalty will be equally low for them.

[HiLo]

EXACTLY.