> I absolutely dispute that! There's a pretty large barrier to entry in the existing market already (network effect is pretty significant for this market), and

> I absolutely dispute that! There's a pretty large barrier to entry in the existing market already (network effect is pretty significant for this market), and a new entrant that's doing full background checks while nobody else is is not going to be able to compete with the already extremely aggressive pricing the existing players are using. That is my point. The plan will not work because it will cost too much and people won't opt into it. Do you know what that says? That they don't care, because the risk is negligible. Or they will care, and they will pay the premium. > Also, if you think this is a case of the government stepping in where they haven't before, you're completely wrong. Licensed cab drivers already get background checks, generally including fingerprints[1]. As Uber and Lyft and others replace licensed taxis, we're losing regulation. If you're so dead set against background checks, why weren't you complaining about taxi companies before Uber came along? Taxis are precisely my point. Regulation creates stagnation and favors incumbents. Taxis suck, regulation is a big reason why. > Not really. Uber and Lyft already drove prices extremely low, both in an attempt to undercut each other and to undercut taxis. If they raise prices they'll start to lose business back to the taxi companies and elsewhere. Uber at least would likely just absorb the cost for now while they continue to try and achieve market dominance. And if they ever do achieve market dominance, you know they're going to raise their prices regardless of whether or not they're doing background checks. That is a temporary measure. You can't spend at a deficit forever. Eventually the cost gets passed on to consumers or they go out of business. It is that simple. > Bullshit. If you're a startup, you're not paying 10 million a year on compliance. The cost for background checks scales linearly with the number of people being checked, so a startup that has a small fleet is going to pay significantly less than Uber. Besides, any new entrant to the carpooling market is going to have to be backed by serious money already to even get a toehold, adding background checks isn't going to change that. There are fixed costs to setting up procedures for doing background checks. The costs do scale linearly plus a constant factor. That constant factor is negligible for Uber but may not be for startups. > The taxi industry is not terrible because of background checks. That's a ridiculous claim. Equating doing background checks with the medallion system also makes no sense at all. You seem to be assuming that all forms of government regulation are identical and therefore any regulation that seems bad means all regulation is bad, and that's nonsense. The taxi industry is not terrible because of background checks alone. It is terrible because the government licenses taxi drivers and artificially limits their supply. >No they wouldn't, because there's no competitor that's any better. I posited the existence of a competitor that is 'better' along this axis. If people care, they'll switch and they'll do so at a premium that corresponds to the strength of that care.