> 1) The current regulatory regime was implemented primarily for the benefit of incumbent and municipal public transit providers.

Without buying into free-market libertarianism I don't see how to convince myself of this. Do companies try to purchase favorable regulation? Of course, it's exactly what Uber is doing right now. But I don't believe people go to engineering school for 4+ years, then work 5+ years for their PE licenses just so they can take kickbacks. Traffic systems and roads must be engineered, it's why they work, and at the end of the day limiting the number of cabs on the road seems like a pretty obvious thing to do.

> 2) There is excess capacity and some level of sunk cost in vehicles owned and operated for personal transportation (they are not constantly utilized or filled to capacity, but a single owner bears significant fixed costs that are not adjusted for this fact).

Sunk costs? No. You're making up a new definition of a well defined term. Excess capacity? 95% No. Lyft Line is the only place I've seen where that argument makes sense. Maybe Uber has a similar set-up, but when people are driving 20-80 hours a week that's just another 3,500 lbs of metal on the road. Cars don't depreciate that much while sitting in garages.

> 3) Medallions artificially restrict the supply and raise the price of cab services, without significant benefit to consumers.

Medallions are just part of a comprehensive regulatory system designed over many decades. They do decrease the number of cabs on the road. Every cab increases congestion, increases everybody's insurance rates, increases pollution, increases the risks faced by pedestrians, etc.

> 4) Uber and its competitors (whom you repeatedly do not acknowledge) are providing a service that is of objective value to consumers.

I never said they weren't. What, am I the Grinch trying to deprive people of value because I don't buy into Uber's PR?

> 5) Uber and its competitors are, in so doing, providing competition at a level unseen for nigh on a century to the incumbent taxi service industry.

I never said they weren't. It's useless to compare the long-term steady-state of the regulated cab industry to the brief period of competition that will occur if barriers to entry are removed. Of course that increases competition. In the short term. Then new barriers to entry are erected and the market concentrates again. The long term picture of "deregulation" is a probable Uber/Lyft duopoly that thanks to their size will likely have as much or more regulatory power than the current cab companies.

Investors don't believe this will be a long term competitive market, that's why Uber's valued at $40 billion. I don't believe it's going to be a long term competitive market, I think it has oligopoly written all over it. Uber certainly doesn't think it's going to be a long term competitive market, in fact it's probably one of their greatest fears. The only people who actually believe that Uber marks a return to free-market economics are the libertarians, and this I attribute to the genius of Uber.

edit: > Let's be clear here, the point you are explicitly disagreeing with is that there is a large amount of excess capacity in the vehicles which are currently owned and operated for personal use. To disagree you must claim that there is not much excess capacity in these vehicles. To weakly support this position you would need to argue one of two things:

> 1) That vehicles owned and operated for personal use are in use for the vast majority of the day (i.e. they don't sit parked for more hours than they spend driving).

> OR

> 2) That vehicles owned and operated for personal use are filled to seating capacity in the vast majority of the trips that they make (i.e. every time someone drives, they have more seats filled than empty).

> To strongly support your position you'd have to argue both of the above. I am not trying to artificially box you into a corner, but I can truly think of no other arguments to support the premise that there is not a large amount of excess capacity in vehicles owned and operated for personal use.*

I really have no idea why you're going on about this. Uber isn't a car-pooling service, it isn't car-sharing. It doesn't even solve this supposed problem of "excess capacity" because what's the average number of occupants in an Uber car on the road? I suspect it's less than 2. I'm not disagreeing with the argument so much as saying it's just too bizarre to disagree with.