So enact laws that force drivers who offer rides professionally to have insurance.
"I don't want my neighbor running an SRO out of his apartment"
Why not? The noise? We have existing nuisance laws for that.
"I like the ability to know that my prescription medications aren't radium-based elixirs."
We have consumer protection laws for that.
Protecting consumers from fraud is a good thing, as it promotes good service and (indirectly through increased trust) grows the economy, and makes people/customers/voters happier.
Protecting companies from their competitors is a bad thing, as it promotes bad service from being outcompeted, and (by allowing inefficiencies to stay unchecked) hampers economic growth, and prevents people/customers/voters from choosing what they want.
Those laws exist. They are called taxi regulations. Uber is flouting them.
Look, Uber can comply with all of the rules that taxicab companies have to. Uber chooses not to because it is more profitable to ignore the laws.
No sympathy for Uber. They could have played within the rules and still been disruptive--they chose to ignore the laws and now are getting bashed for it.
He's not saying that the regulations that the Seattle City Council chose to impose were the right ones to impose. He's saying that the inverse argument--that there should not be any regulations at all--isn't correct either.