Before WW2 there was a far lower proportion of people who could drive cars. WW2 essentially taught almost every soldier to drive. After WW2 was over there were

Before WW2 there was a far lower proportion of people who could drive cars. WW2 essentially taught almost every soldier to drive. After WW2 was over there were huge numbers of drivers and a shortage of jobs and used cars were cheap. This led to large numbers of people offering rides for hire. This was a huge shake-up to the taxi business and laws against these ad-hoc taxis were soon enacted. Later they also wanted to create a scarcity of taxis so prices could be kept high and the medallion business emerged. The high prices meant you could make so much money that medallion prices went through the roof. During WW2, miniature radio tubes were developed so a 2 way radio was practical for cars. This led to the radio dispatch empires that also collected medallions. In Toronto new medallions were issued to drivers after 10-20 years of full time driving. Before they had their own medallion you rented a medallion for each of the two shifts the taxi business operated on. Once you got your own you could join a radio dispatch group and pay a radio fee. These groups would register a catchy number and when any one wanted a cab they called that number - gave the address and radio dispatched a taxi. Nice fat little empires - full of abuse. Most cities in USA/Canada were happy to see Uber come along as the taxi companies were charging $50-100 for a ride to the airport. This was a cash cow as most trips were under 30 minutes (away from rush hour) even the airports want part of the fee. Taxi companies tried everything to kill Uber/Lyft. Now the greed of Uber/Lyft are killing themselves. Uber/Lyft could be replaced by a dispatching website over the air, with no fee to Uber/Lyft at all. The 'free-range-drivers' would have to make an organization and build a site, which could be replicated all over. The site cost would be under 5% of the ride fee (IMHO). An added cost is possibly driver insurance against customer harm and the usual car insurance. Insurance companies could implement insurance per mile (with access to the speedo cluster)