What made Uber special was that it ignored medallion/license laws. Those were central to taxi mafia. For example in São Paulo there was a period of time where s

What made Uber special was that it ignored medallion/license laws. Those were central to taxi mafia. For example in São Paulo there was a period of time where some 30.000 or so drivers had passed all requisites, paid all fees, but whenever they applied for a license the government would only say they needed to wait. But if you paid 100k USD to certain guys, they would drop a cab, license and everything you needed at an agreed drop point, without any of the exams, testing, courses, etc...