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Comment by pdq | Hacker News Reader

It's pretty ridiculous that car-pooling (aka ride-sharing) is fully legal and unrestricted.

However, the second you charge money for the same service, the regulators want to get involved to check for safety, inspections, and licensing.

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Yes, a commercial relationship changes the nature of that transaction since commercial transactions are regulated/taxed in many states.

You're missing the point. If the grounds are that ethically paying customers should have taxis licensed, why do those ethics not apply also to donated services, like car-pooling?

Because if there is money involved there is incentive to do it for a living, which leads to incentive to cut costs and that might not always be done in a consumer-friendly way; therefore regulation is needed. If there is no money involved, the people who would cut costs and make it unsafe for the consumer are rarer -- since they can't do it for a living, and the relationship is harder to regulate since the only thing involved is communication between two parties, so it's probably not worth it.

Because in the donated service (car pooling) its much less likely that the people participating are doing so as members of the public.

Its like the difference between me showing a movie in my house to 15 friends And me renting out a movie theatre and opening the doors for everyone to come in. Even if the same 15 friends show up, they do it as members of the public.

I'm pretty sure he sees the point you're making, but disagrees with it. While your question, which is already answered in the post you're replying to, indicates to me that you're missing the point.

It's pretty ridiculous that having sex (aka one night stands) is fully legal and unrestricted.

However, the second you charge money for the same service, the regulators want to get involved to check for safety, inspections, and licensing.

As mentioned below, not if there's a camera involved. Then both parties are "actors", and the service is legal.

Can you find ANY evidence of this loophole holding up in court? You seem really sure but a quick google suggests that it's just as unrealistic and urban legendy as it sounds.

Prostitution is illegal in California. Filming porn is legal. Are you aware of police arresting porn stars for prostitution while on camera?

But only if you use a condom

There are a number of things (sex, homebrew, tax prep, massage, fishing, etc.) become regulated/illegal as soon as you start charging for them.

sex - not if you film it. then it's instantly legal

The thing about porn is that the participants are usually not the ones paying. If you started charging your performers, you might find yourself with a different classification.

I wonder if you could circumvent these issues by making it donation only, but show riders' donation history to drivers before they choose to accept a rider. The donation is "optional" but unless you want to be effectively blacklisted (by individual drivers, not Uber/Lyft) you should leave a donation.

I'm sure the taxi lobby would figure out a way to shut that down as well, of course.

I think this is how lyft started out.

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