I note that at least in theory, "guaranteeing availability of off-peak and low-density service" is indeed at least partly about providing transit to the "underp

I note that at least in theory, "guaranteeing availability of off-peak and low-density service" is indeed at least partly about providing transit to the "underprivileged" -- that is, to people who live in unpopular/poor parts of town or the elderly who want taxi transit during low-demand parts of the day. That said, I've never seen a lot of signs that taxi regulation was effective in providing service in low density areas and off-peak times. Indeed, it seems pretty clear to me that the main purpose of taxi regulation is either: a. Sincere concerns about "oversupply" b. A revenue generation device with a fig leaf about a nonsensical "oversupply" problem. c. A corrupt institution to guarantee the profits of politically connected people with a fig leaf about a nonsensical "oversupply" problem. d. Or most likely, some mixture of the above. Note that c. is probably not the principal answer here. In any case, I think that there's a terribly high bar of evidence required to imagine that taxi regulations save us from the scourge of oversupply, and I've never seen the slightest whiff of such evidence. Why exactly is the taxi industry uniquely prone to oversupply?