This isn't the motivation for this regulation. If it was, the same City Councilman who proposed this cap wouldn't have shot down a minimum-wage proposal for cab drivers. Remember: most medallions aren't owned by cab drivers. And cab drivers don't donate.
Uber and Lyft were largely operating illegally when they started in most cities. They ignored expensive licensing requirements. They ignored safety regulations. They ignored insurance requirements. They ignored price controls on fares. They ignored requirements to accommodate disabled people.
Taxi companies who were obeying all these rules (which all imposed costs on the taxi companies that Uber and Lyft did not have) had a reasonable expectation, perhaps even a right, to expect the city would force Uber and Lyft to follow those rules too, or would shut them down. But the cities didn't, so I think a good case can be made that the cities owe the taxi drivers a bailout.
Uber and Lyft beat NYC taxis fair and square - they used the existing TLC regulations (with the overhead required) and won out because of being a better product.
[1] http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/pos...
Immigrants from Romania, the couple had bought their New York City taxi medallion nearly three decades ago. Lately, it had been difficult to find fares. Her husband worked 12-hour shifts, but brought home less money. He was worried about the plunging value of their once-lucrative medallion and frustrated about Uber’s takeover of the industry.
On a cold day in March, Mr. Ochisor hanged himself in his garage in Queens. His family blames the growing hopelessness he felt over his fortunes as a taxi driver.
In this case, Mr. Ochisor's customers were so desperate for an alternative to his three-decade-old business that they turned to a startup company that works by (literally) dodging taxi regulators. Is that really Uber's fault? The regulators'? The customers? Just how far do we want to take this whole idea of being reponsible for our competitors' mental health, or that of our vendors?
Your beef is with the taxi cartels and their click-hungry sympathizers in the media, not with me. They started it.
And I don’t have “beefs” with fictional boogie man cooked up by Uber, however bought in you are to that narrative. I certainly don’t remember “taxi cartels” stealing and passing around the medical records of rape victims, but that was probably a conspiracy by their “click-hungry sympathizers in the media.”
Uber is not responsible for pushing people to suicide at the end of a 30-year taxi-driving career. If you disagree, I respectfully suggest there are other sites where such opinions are more in line with the underlying ethos.
What recourse did he have? To this day government response to Uber's incursions has been mostly toothless.
I'm no friend of the taxi lobby but the guy was just trying to do right by his family up until he killed himself. While I don't see how Uber could realistically be held responsible for this guy's suicide, their undercutting his business certainly contributed to it, and you're being needlessly callous.
It's a broken system. Could you imagine if you had to put up $1.3 million to be a factory worker? Money that you're still on the hook for if the factory ends up closing due to lack of demand? Charging people for the privilege of working, and somehow its Uber's fault for not protecting this corrupt and manipulative system.
If you mod me down and send me into an emotional crisis, are you responsible for what I do as a result? No? Why not?