[pron]

Exactly, but I'd phrase it a bit differently: when it comes to taxis and apartments, regulations are bad for you, the consumer, and good for the people in your community (taxi drivers, neighbors), while in insurance, regulations directly protect the consumer.

Because people (especially in the US) couldn't care less about other people, regulation that annoys consumers is "bad", and the consumers then defend the companies breaking those particular laws. Those companies exploit the fact that in every industry, consumers always outnumber providers (or conversely, every person consumes from many more industries than those where they provide), and so the disregard for this kind of regulation will always work. Every new company will get consumers to gang up on the far fewer incumbent providers until they break the regulation that protects them, and so on, industry by industry.

It's a little like the robber barons, who used every new wave of immigrants to beat up the previous generation of immigrants who tried to unionize, and then hired the new ones in their place... that is, until the next wave of immigrants. Except the new way of doing this is far more effective, because it's always easy to obtain a majority that supports you and feel like they're doing the right thing at the same time.

[lazerwalker]

For the most part I think you're spot-on, although it's worth emphasizing the nuance that not ALL taxi/hotel regulations are bad for the consumer.

Most of the AirBnB and Uber horror stories you hear are things that don't happen, or happen far less relative to the overall volume, in a world of licensed taxis and professional hotels/B&Bs.

Does the good of current regulations outweigh the bad? Likely not, in many cases. But there are reasons (at least some of) these regulations exist outside of capitalism being terrible and the successful trying (and succeeding) at pushing out competition.

[nommm-nommm]

I would argue that many (most?) housing regulations are good for the consumer. My landlord has to provide me with a safe and structurally sound place to live, which is good for me. If my heat breaks in the winter he's obligated to fix it, he can't evict me and leave me on the streets on a whim, or turn off my water if I am late on the rent, etc. Laws around security deposits are usually good for the consumer as well. Nobody wants what is referred to as a "slumlord."

Landlords often are annoyed about regulations (and some tenants unfortunately abuse them) but many came about because of the abusive practices of the slumlords.

Our society deems having a safe place to live pretty essential so landlords have a massive amount of power over their tenants if unchecked.

[run4yourlives2]

This is a little simplistic. I won't argue that these regulations have morphed into things that are overall negative for the consumer, but the reason they where introduced in the first place is because you had instances of people actually being killed by unregulated nefarious actors. That is certainly negative for the consumer.

When people are asking politicians why Joe Doe was able to operate his "taxi" company that wouldn't stop his car outside of the ghetto without a $50 "oops, I got lost fee", it seems obvious why regulation is put in place.

That isn't to say that said regulation remains entirely useful, just that your argument isn't really bore out by the history.

The reason why zenefits is having issues is that the laws they broke are still entirely relevant to everyone involved.

[bambax]

Well said.

The so-called "sharing economy" could as well be called "fuck you economy".

[CPLX]

Don't know why this is downvoted it's spot on.

[mason240]

> regulations are bad for you, the consumer, and good for a small group of rent-seekers (like taxi drivers)

FTFY

[pron]

Well, that's a tradeoff. If the number of medallions is kept up with demand (as is the case in many places), I'd argue that some mechanism to protect the livelihood of those who can't obtain better jobs is a net positive, as it allows the less fortunate to get ahead, especially in an economy where decent blue-collar jobs are getting harder and harder to come by. It's not like taxi drivers are fat cat millionaires who get rich off the back of poor consumers.

[pkaye]

Generally the medallions are owned by someone else invariably rich (or lucky to get it early) and then rented out to the taxi drivers. The taxi drivers start doing shady things in order to pay the rental costs and earn a living. Then various sides get into the game of how many medallions should be available in the market to play with the supply/demand curve and maximize their own profits.

[pron]

I think Uber is owned by someone much richer than any taxi company owner, and the difference is that the shady things in Uber's case are done not by the mistreated employees but by the owners themselves (often against their own employees), and they don't do it to earn a living. I am not saying taxi company owners are saints, but Uber is by no means better.

If you've seen the HBO series Deadwood (a masterpiece, BTW), I'd say we're replacing an Al Swearengen with a George Hearst. Both may be villains, but the scale makes all the difference...

[pkaye]

I don't very much care for Uber. I don't want them to have a monopoly in the taxi market. Hopefully a more open taxi industry with competition allows for improved quality.

[ameister14]

Competition without regulation doesn't improve quality, historically it lowers it.

[AJ007]

If Uber ultimately goes public, then the owner will be society. The medallion owners largely were individuals who had the access to credit and leveraged in as the values rose.

There is a lot more transparency with Uber, however if they achieve a near total monopoly on transportation such as Google did for search, the end result from a consumer experience standpoint may end up the same, with different trade offs.

The alternate issue, the employees/drivers, won't matter in the long run because there won't be drivers whether it was Uber or medallion holders.

[metaphorm]

> If Uber ultimately goes public, then the owner will be society

thats a ludicrous reductionism as to what "publicly traded" company actually means and it discredits the rest of otherwise reasonable argument to say this.

[dragonwriter]

> If Uber ultimately goes public, then the owner will be society.

No, if Uber is ever nationalized, then the owner will be society.

If Uber merely goes public, then the owners will still be the stockholders, its just that it will be easier to trade in the stock.

[pron]

> If Uber ultimately goes public, then the owner will be society.

You mean those in society with disposable income to invest (or a 401K). That's not quite the same as "society".

> The medallion owners largely were individuals who had the access to credit and leveraged in as the values rose.

Sure, they were small-business entrepreneurs. As I said, they are Swearengen to Uber's Hearst, but their immigrant employees certainly benefit from the regulation, too.

> The alternate issue, the employees/drivers, won't matter in the long run because there won't be drivers whether it was Uber or medallion holders.

Perhaps, but there will be other similar issues.

[st3v3r]

If Uber goes public, nothing significant will change. The same creepy people will be in charge, the CEO will still be the same guy who's advocated breaking laws and sending PIs to stalk reporters.

[mason240]

Rent seeking through regulations designed explicitly to eliminate competition is not suddenly ok because you perceive them as "blue collar."

It's unreal that people would attempt to defend this.

[pron]

I guess that depends on the values you hold, doesn't it? For many of us, there are some values that occasionally trump that of unrestricted competition, and many of us believe that sometimes free competition reduces freedom rather than increases it.

[mason240]

More accurately, there are a few of you that support rent-seeking.

[pron]

Or even more accurately, many of us think that it is possible to conceive of things worse than rent-seeking, and so in some circumstances it is possible that a reasonable amount of it may be the lesser of two evils (just as accepting killing in self defense is not the same as "supporting murder"). Others, of course, may believe that there can be nothing worse.