For reference, the 15-minute law mentioned in the article is a restriction that companies like Uber have to force their customers to wait at least 15 minutes before getting a ride. Given that the average black car gets to a customer in 7 minutes, this is a serious handicap. [1]

This sort of law feels really backwards. It degrades the service of companies like Uber and imposes negative externalities on society--more cars pointlessly idling and waiting around, more traffic congestion and so on. The idea behind a market is to improve quality; trying to "improve" the market by arbitrarily degrading the quality of some competitors is exactly counter-productive.

Given that the taxis have gotten this absurdly protectionist restriction in place, it's even harder to empathize with their protest. Actually getting violent is even worse.

Of course, it's also important to remember that this is likely an extreme action by a single individual and does not represent taxi drivers as a group. In fact, there is no immediate link between the attack and taxis, although it seems extremely likely. That said, even ignoring the violence, I do not really sympathize with the taxi protests here.

[1]: http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/28/uber-lecab-and-others-now-h...