[bobthepanda]

One notable example I can think of is accessibility services.

In the US, public transit must accommodate the disabled, and for some types of trips or some types of disabilities there is a totally parallel transit system that involves specialized vehicles, operators, dispatchers to efficiently route vehicles, etc. It's also a massive PITA from the rider's POV, since you have to dial a call center to schedule a day in advance and you get a time window in which the driver will show up. This system dates from the '80s, before the Internet and before taxis were mandated to be accessible.

New York City tried a pilot program in which this system was replaced by subsidizing rideshare rides, since in the 21st century all taxis are required to have accommodations for the disabled anyways and you can leverage a well-tested system of ordering rides instantly and a large fleet of vehicles. While this did reduce per trip costs from $69 to $39, the increased convenience caused ridership to also skyrocket, so it ended up being a net drain on finances. [1] http://archive.is/N3DjJ

[lonelappde]

Also, scammers using VOIP (plus extremely sensitive ADA rules around treating disabled people nicely and never doubting people who claimed disability) ruined the deaf-serving text-to-telephone gateway. Fortunately that problem was mostly solved by the Internet mostly killing voice phone.

[donw]

That's a great example!

[bobthepanda]

Yeah, basically you would be looking for a government policy that would be making something cheaper, but also so wildly convenient that it ends up increasing usage faster than the savings.

Another example is the expansion of highways; if highways are free, expanding them to relieve traffic will generally cause car travel to go up as more trips become tolerable, and then the highway will be as congested as it was before. https://www.vox.com/2014/10/23/6994159/traffic-roads-induced...