[skewart]

The problem is that they were getting the advantages of being licensed while not actually following proper procedure for licensing. They were effectively lying to everyone. Sure, it's a pretty harmless lie, but I can see how people in the industry would be pissed.

Lyft and Uber skirt similar kinds of regulation but they're completely up front about it. They don't pretend that their drivers are licensed or claim any benefit for having licensed drivers in any way. They're simply offering a different product than what taxis offer - getting a ride with a random unlicensed stranger. They're not trying to get the best of both worlds - the legitimacy of being licensed and the cost saving of not bothering with it.

Lyft and Uber, and Airbnb too, are simply offering a new product that doesn't come with any reassurance for consumers from regulatory compliance. They're betting that reputation systems (ratings, reviews, etc.) will provide assurance for consumers just as well if not better than government regulation. So far the market is showing they just might be right.

I suspect that if Zenefits had offered a platform where anyone can sell insurance to anyone from the beginning then people would be less pissed about it. Of course offering an unlicensed insurance brokerage product would probably be a lot harder to pull off than offering an unlicensed taxi product.

[pj_mukh]

Hmm? I'm not sure I care if the "industry" is pissed if said industry accepts regulations that we all agree are silly

P.S: I'm totally for sensible regulations. However, sensible regulations usually require wide amounts of nepotism, cronyism and backstabbing to break. If a regulation is important enough that people could be hurt by it, then it should not be circumventable by a web script.