That's not a natural monopoly. The capital costs are nowhere near on the order of magnitude required to block new VC-backed companies from entering the market.

That's not a natural monopoly. The capital costs are nowhere near on the order of magnitude required to block new VC-backed companies from entering the market. Your comparison to utilities aptly demonstrates this point: to introduce a new transportation service, you would need to fund software and digital infrastructure, as well as physical vehicles (self-driving, most likely). That is well within the realm of a funded company to achieve. No digging up roads to lay new water pipes, creating new easements and installations for electric power lines, or any of the other substantial barriers to entry that existing markets for public utilities present. Even setting that aside, your suggested solution to what is, in my view, a non-problem, is to introduce exactly the kind of regulations that have resulted in the abysmal service and high cost of existing taxi firms. In order for firms to be incentivised to create these new business models - and let's be clear, the Uber/Lyft model is very much a new and revolutionary model in this industry - there needs to be the just reward for their investment. This is the incentive that creates new value. If you regulate that value away, you will be left with a new tier of lacklustre taxi 2.0 offerings.