Agreed, though I hope that any serious post-mortem about the Uber debacle include not just the regulatory failure that led to Uber's abuses, but also the regula

Agreed, though I hope that any serious post-mortem about the Uber debacle include not just the regulatory failure that led to Uber's abuses, but also the regulatory failure that led to Uber's existence in the first place. Part of why local governments were unwilling to enforce the law against Uber was because the citizenry wanted the Uber product, and wanted it badly. The pace at which Uber grew is not just indicative of the absurd funding they had, but also how broken the status quo was in the taxi industry. Local governments were largely unable to enforce the rule of law in this area because the law-abiding option had become utterly and completely indefensible. In Seattle there were popular protests in favor of Uber, that's how badly the product was wanted. I think there's a larger lesson here about poor governance being corrosive to the rule of law - at the end of the day, if things get bad enough, the law becomes words on a page rather than the rule of the land. That's a scary thought. The taxi industry pre-Uber was universally reviled. Many comments here illustrate it, and they're not wrong. Strict supply limits created a market where competition was all but unnecessary, while would-be competitors had no legal ability to operate. My (admittedly simplified) take is this: years of complete regulatory and governance failure around for-hire cabs created fertile ground for companies cavalier or dismissive about transport law. Companies cavalier or dismissive about transport law turn out to be cavalier or dismissive about other areas of law, to no particular surprise. While Uber can and should be held to account for all of its abuses, another Uber (or worse) will simply reoccur unless the underlying governance failure is fixed.