Perhaps. But a reasonable license requiring you to pass a test isn't the same as a medallion in the traditional American taxi system. Medallions (often costing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars) were a way of artificially reducing the number of taxis (and thus raising the price).
This. Medallion systems in NYC were gamed by a guy who let people literally bet on its as if it were an asset. The prices went to a million per until the bubble burst. True story
They succeeded commercially, but they didn't succeed in changing the regulatory landscape. I'm not sure what you mean by waiting for it to even out. They refused to comply, so they were banned, so they complied.