| I don't subscribe to it, but: Taxis negotiated their monopoly by giving us concessions for e.g. universal service (a taxi, unlike most businesses, is obligated to serve any customer regardless of whether their custom is the most profitable use of the taxi's time). This allows us to depend on taxis as an outsourced component of our public transportation infrastructure. If competition creams the really desirable fairs away from taxis, that might kill taxis. DSX has no desire to implement universal service and never will. This will adversely affect our most vulnerable citizens, like little old ladies who depend on the $3.50 fare to the local supermarket (whose custom taxi drivers hate) due to limited mobility. How can we be sure drivers at DSX have adequate insurance, safe driving records, and obey the traffic laws? DSX says that they have adequate procedures in place, but DSX has basically designed those procedures itself, and on the face of it DSX seems to operate under accept-everyone-and-weed-out-underperformers, which still means that at any given time there are dozens of commercial drivers who we know nothing about operating on the streets of our fair city. We depend on "if you screw up, you lose your medallion" to discipline taxi owners (as opposed to operators) in this city. "If you screw up, your account gets deleted and you have to move to a competing provider" doesn't apply the same level of incentive. If Disruptive Service X (DSX) will let literally anybody with a car start working for them, how can we be sure that DSX isn't a summon-a-rapist app? Cars present a higher risk of rape/kidnapping than e.g. barber salons (n.b. which we also regulate), since a) they move and b) the passenger generally doesn't have a convenient escape out of the door. |