| Of course vested interests in old industries will do whatever they can to block innovation. We're seeing it with all major industry disruptions. It used to be enough for the vested interests to write laws to block out, limit, or otherwise hinder additional traditional competitors (taxi medallions, ridiculous license requirements for florists[1], etc). Now we're seeing these same groups try to initiate and bring in new laws to stop competition that is truly an innovative take on an industry. Such as the Uber amendment[2] that was to be written and voted on in less than 24 hours, or cease and desist notices being sent to Lyft and SideCar, telling them to shelve their business while they investigate whether or not they are doing something illegal[3]. Entrenched industries with connections to governments, and governments making tax revenue from these entrenched businesses both have a huge incentive to get old laws enforced past their original intent (which were often written for the sole purpose of protecting those entrenched businesses anyway) and new laws written and passed to shut this down. However, these truly innovative companies are filling a need that the old ones don't. That's why there are more Uber black cars in SF than there were black cars in traditional services before Uber[4]. These companies that are pushing society forward have so much momentum and support from the communities using them that lawmakers are better served listening to the people than ignoring them. I have no doubt that Elon Musk and Tesla will be able to disrupt the car-buying market by selling direct to customers. Maybe we'll see another startup come along and piggyback off of their success by selling other cars direct, blatantly ignoring the protectionist laws, and consumers rally behind them to get the laws changed. I don't know where the future lies in the auto industry, but I do know that innovation and forward progress won't be stopped in the long run, no matter how many road blocks there are. I have huge respect for all of these companies that are not only working on doing the incredibly hard task of creating and trying to sustain a company, but having to fight much larger corporations at the same time. 1. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131571&page=1 2. http://blog.uber.com/2012/07/09/strike-down-the-minimum-fare... 3. http://thesidecarblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/sidecar_cp... 4. From Travis Kalanick's talk at Startup School |
Franchise laws are the product of decades of overlapping private/public enforcement of contractual issues between dealers and manufacturers. It seems clear on the face of it that Tesla should in no way be encumbered by the arrangements made between General Motors and its dealers, because Tesla never had dealers to pull the rug out from under. And this is notwithstanding the fact that encoding and enforcing agreements between dealers and manufacturers should have been the province of contract law, not statutes.
Taxi regulations serve legitimate purposes beyond enforcing agreements. For instance: in many states, it's difficult to get a job driving taxis or even black cars with a suspension on your record, because the licenses are held by parent companies who are liable to lose them if a driver causes an incident.
Loud arguments declaiming the insanity of applying taxi regulations to a service as excellent as Uber also tend not to engage with the real argument, which is, "what do we do when there are 10 Ubers, and drivers can hop between them?"
You can believe that there are valid reasons to regulate cabs and black cars, or you can not believe that. But it's intellectually dishonest to lump that question in with franchise laws and licenses for florists.