Also, if the bar to entry into the profession is simply to have a car and a smartphone, it will quickly become a race to the bottom in terms of wages.
All of this is good for the consumers, they get a lot of power over the drivers, they can threaten to give them a bad rating and so on, but there should probably be a balance.
Then again, it's not like the existing taxi cab unions and medallion systems and regulations are a guarantee of a good environment.
And on the third side, this profession is going to be eradicated by self-driving cars within fifteen years, so who cares?
If that's all that is required to be an effective driver, why should cab drivers be overpaid?
This is why we have labour laws, to shift the balance, to make work suck a little bit less for everyone.
(In principle. In practice in the taxi-cab case, I can't say that the various regulations and systems improve things for anyone, it's mostly captured by the rent-seekers anyway, so everyone gets screwed)
Meanwhile, in the real world, people take jobs for all sorts of reasons, and often do not have the luxury of choosing freely. The whole reason we have labour laws in the first place is because the free market has shown, again and again and again, to be completely inept at guaranteeing fair tratment of workers.
I know that with a purely US perspective it's hard to see the benefits of labour protections, since here jobs are either unionized into stupidity, or completely at-will. There's no middle ground, and then it's fair to come to the conclusion that it's all crap. However, there are plenty of countries outside the US where job markets have a healthier balance between protections for workers and company interests.
On the flip-side, Uber seems to be reducing racial discrimination against potential riders, as per this piece: https://medium.com/matter/ubering-while-black-146db581b9db.
2) The requirement that road users have insurance is in my opinion completely separate to what those road-users do with their vehicles. Shouldn't it be?
3) People are not "hopeless at assessing risk." That's a ludicrous assertion. Everytime anybody buys anything, goes anywhere, or does anything, they are assessing risk. Buying goods off Ebay = assessing risks. Eating at a restaurant = assessing risks. Walking down the street = assessing risks.
No, you are wrong. People over-estimate the probability of rare events and under estimate the probability of common events. There are a bunch of biases that make people really bad at assessing risk.
The examples you give - all of them needed extensive modification to help people assess the risk or to protect people from the risk. (Ebay introduced reputation systems and gives stern advice about not paying for goods with Western Union cash transfer; retaurants have to comply with hygiene laws backed up by inspection - how many people bother to ask to see the kitchen or the staff loos before eating somewhere?)
But by that argument wikipedia should be the world's biggest encyclopedia of racist porn.
One aspect of the government side is securing that drivers and cars are safe and properly insured and making sure that the handicapped and minorities aren't discriminated against. But it's also, in many cities, running a rigidly planned economy, ostensibly for the benefit of drivers, but in reality often more so for medallion holders and unions, and having allow those vested interests to capture the system - and surely against the benefit of consumers.
On the other hand, Uber clearly brings huge benefits to the consumer: better cars that actually show up, politer drivers, better price/choice, easy grievance process etc. But there's also ambiguity about how they threat their drivers, whether insurance is always completely correct (especially in UberPOP) etc. Then of course, there's some questionable ethical dealings.
I'm a big fan of Uber, so obviously biased, but the idea is that benefits and drawbacks exist on a spectrum, and there's no reason we couldn't get the best of both worlds: properly regulated and insured cars, without the planned economy of medallions, and decent labour-protection of drivers without completely screwing over consumers. In London, Ubers are fully regulated under the "Private Hire" scheme which is unlimited in the number of licenses provided, but require commercial insurance and a background check of drivers and I think this strikes the balance very well.
All in all, taxicabs suck but Uber should burn in hell.
Are you alleging that all lending to people with poor credit scores is wrong, even in the cases where doing so might be the only way to give that person a job and help them improve their life?
The point about indentured servitude seems like hyperbole. Certainly the drivers can decide to just stop driving for Uber (they can't withhold income that doesn't ever come through) and/or allow the car to be repossessed if they really can't afford it. It also looks like Uber is helping buyers get manufacturer discounts (http://uberwest.weebly.com/la-vehicle-financing.html). Maybe I'm missing something here, but it looks like a good program for a number of people who can't afford to buy a car but want to become a driver.
If I paid a million bucks for a taxi medallion, and then 6 months later medallions aren't necessary--either because the government changes the law or because the government fails to enforce the law--I'm going to want a refund.
This is, ostensibly, what contracts should cover. The medallion issuer should be subject to a series of conditions under which the medallion purchaser is entitled to some sort of recompense if the issuer breaches those conditions. Entering into a purchase contract for an item that is literally the life and death of your career, agreeing to terms in which the other party basically says "trust us, we'll do what we promise so you aren't completely ruined" is a terrible way to do business.