These are two good reasons for the law to be reformed, but not for why Uber is above the law.
I see no reason for Uber to be exempt from the same regulations other services must abide by.
I see no reason for Uber to be exempt from the same regulations other services must abide by.
Its a chicken and egg problem. There has to be igniting situation to get change to happen and a company can not operate 100% legally without the change occuring. As a result its sometimes in the company's best interest to ignite the fire themselves and eat any blow back.
Given the New Years Eve pricing debacle, I'm glad regulation is being put in place. Taxi's are underserved and a horrible experience, but their pricing is both consistent and 100% transparent during and after the ride. Uber's pricing is a confusing mess. Time, demand, distance, and vehicle are all factors and you're only aware of the price after the ride.
For any well developed market, radical innovations in productivity can almost assuredly be illegal. Standards of service must be set on a national level, not a mico one.
Imagine if every time you went to a different city, Uber's user experience changed drastically. You never knew what Uber would cost. Perhaps sometimes you had to do things that completely broke Uber's experience. Imagine if Boston's Uber app was just a button that said "call dispatcher" and then you had to pay cash at the end of the trip. Why bother?
Uber is not challenging the right of a municipality to issue rules or regulations. What they are challenging is an antiquated system of bureaucracy, for a specific market, which wastes both a city's budget and customer's time.
I think we will see the Uber strategy applied to a very wide rank of micro-regulated markets. And its going to work. The cities that "win" will lose, big time.