It's a weird debate here in DC, to be sure. I know the president of Uber is a really shitty person, (see this NSFWCorp article I unlocked for this purpose ) and his attempts to change things are brutal to an unnecessary extreme (he also opposes licensing of cabbies), but on the other hand, I don't believe the cab association is any better. Here we require cars to have credit card readers, and yet they consistently fail. They recently had the ban on fare limits lifted, and then proceed to gouge riders exorbitantly-- to the point where Uber is about the same price (and cheaper even with Uber X)-- yet they bitch about how much Uber is gouging people.

So perhaps this is one of those cases where laissez-faire should be in place. The cabs want the business back? Make your prices reasonable. Our metro stops running at midnight on weekends, and if I need a cab, there's no fucking way I'm taking a dirty car, with a driver who has no idea where he's going and refuses to use GPS, and then pay 65 bucks, when I can get things better, cheaper, faster, and cleaner from Uber X. And on the flipside, the cab company's competition and opposition forces Uber to have that cheap alternative as well. Rarely do Adam Smith proponents have such a clean case to wax intellectual about.

In reality it will probably lead to collusion that fucks over the customers. I suppose that already started with Travis Kalanick's downright refusal to obey some laws.