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Comment by drcode | Hacker News Reader

I was saying the same thing when Uber launched- "An Uber is just a Taxi and if they don't follow taxi regulations they will be shut down quickly."

I'm still not sure exactly why this didn't happen, but if people can agree that Uber isn't a Taxi, then I think they can also come to the conclusion that an ICO token isn't a traditional security... the world just isn't as black-and-white as we often like to think, and legislators are human beings that have a lot more flexibility around enforcement than people imagine.

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Funnily enough UberX wasn't the first. Uber was only using licensed Taxi drives for UberBlack, and wanted to do UberX, but knew they'd be shut down immediately. Then Lyft did it....normal people accepting rides. Uber waited for the Lyft shutdown. Didn't happen. Then the city of SF proposed giving Lyft a licence.

At that point, Uber pulled out the brakes and that changed their view on regulations permanently.

Source---straight from Travis (TK) himself.

The difference is that Uber wasn't a taxi because they didn't (and still don't) accept street hails.

The question around Uber was whether the laws would be changed to make them a taxi, which after much lobbying they weren't, but they were already fine under the existing laws. As kenbaylor says below, Uber themselves thought the laws would quickly be changed to make their business illegal, so they didn't even get into that market until Lyft forced them to do so.

> I was saying the same thing when Uber launched- "An Uber is just a Taxi and if they don't follow taxi regulations they will be shut down quickly."

The difference is that Uber was not created to fleece the masses via investment pump and dump scheme.

As of now, ICOs are purely pump and dump. They are modern day unregistered securities, promoted via modern day version of faxes

Tell that to the taxi drivers who are now selling their once coveted medallions at a loss.

Thank you for proving my point:

taxi drivers are selling their medallions that they used to offer service. They are selling these medallions at a loss because a competitor is eating their lunch.

the two are completely different things. Uber is/was committing an administrative violation. When you violate securities laws, that's actually a crime.

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