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Comment by hnnewguy | Hacker News Reader

Banning products and services in demand by every day people has a long history of working out.

Except it's not really banning a product or a service. Taxis still run in the city and Uber still runs in the city. Uninsured rides for money is what remains banned. The company would have to ensure that Uber drivers have the correct insurance. It's not a p2p lift share scheme, it's a business.

In the UK it is illegal for a mini-cab (not the standard black/yellow taxi, hail taxi) to take you without booking. Their insurance only covers pre-booked fares.

Banning dangerous and illegal services is fine if the providers don't clean up their act.

>Banning dangerous and illegal services is fine

Things that are banned are always described as "dangerous and illegal".

Not true. Many times dangerous operators are legitimately shut down for breaking the law, or hurting people. It's called regulation and justice.

Even Uber uses it on their own drivers. If the drivers get too many bad ratings they don't allow the driver to keep working for them.

Uber has gotten too many bad ratings, and France is shutting them down.

That is a very naive point of view. Governments don't work like Yelp or Hacker News or something. There are people that represent or have the support of powerful lobbies which make things change. In this case, the taxi union. The article even talks about this move being in response to threats by the taxis. "With Paris taxis threatening to create traffic chaos on Monday with a go-slow action to protest the ride-booking company, an Interior Ministry spokesman said that Uber’s low-cost service, UberPop, would be prohibited in France as of Jan. 1."

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