This to me, is the key of the problem. Yes, the taxi medallion system was broken in many cities and Uber is forcing to at least acknowledge that regulation in it's current form it's not longer useful. But I think that as a company Uber it's not a positive force on the public transportation market. Quite the opposite. I love tu use it when I'm in San Francisco but cannot shake the feeling that we are screwing ourselves long term by supporting it.
The medallion system was never "useful". It was simply a feudalistic setup designed with the help of regulatory capture to allow private investors to impose a private tax on riders and drivers.
Uber is simply modifying the feudal system, placing themselves at the top instead of the medallion owners.
Given the range of big investors and political support for the company (that stretches all the way up to Obama), I would guess that it's not even a change in who owns the taxi system - Goldman sachs are probably simply buying up uber stock and dumping medallions on easily duped investors - pension funds and the like, while lobbying their ass off to give Uber a free pass on all this lyft sabotage bullshit.
Owning a taxi medallion is like owning a McDonald's franchise. Doesn't exactly make you a Master of the Universe. A $1 million investment in an NYC medallion nets you a maximum of about $75,000 a year: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/10/21/why-taxi-me.... The average McDonald's franchise nets $200-250k/year, and costs about $750k-1.5 million to buy.
Anyways those boomers are annoying (my father is one); explaining to him how he got incredibly lucky is like bashing my head against a wall, especially contrasting with my own personal, relative financial failure.
As for "Goldman Sachs-esque" returns, the price of a taxi medallion increased from about $100k in 1985 to $250k in 2005. Less than the return most Americans got on their house over that time. There was a major spike in the last decade, but it doesn't seem to be correlated with any real change in demand for cabs, or any specific regulatory action. As far as I can tell, the spike in price is just the result of the general attractiveness of safe but low-yield investments in this poor economy.
In any case, these are $1 million investments that net maybe $50-75k per year, and are appreciating quickly but not more so than say real estate in SF or NYC. The owners of these medallions aren't big money players. The investors behind Uber are.
Only if McDonald's was the only company that was allowed to sell food.
Have you considered not using it?