Brian Doherty on E-Hailing Apps Creatively Destroying Taxis
Last month, California became the first state to establish a set of regulations on the bevy of new companies that summon rides-for-hire via smartphone apps. Most prominent among such services are Lyft and Uber.
The regulations from California's Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) came in the face of lots of heated opposition to these services on the part of existing licensed and regulated taxi drivers, who hate the competition.
But, as Brian Doherty points out, the drivers for these services represent a new way of doing the business of driving people around that's of unstoppable appeal, no matter the silly and annoying ways government—in the service of their traditional taxi competitors—might try to hobble it.