interesting article.

It looks like Uber will make the existing regulated taxi cartel unsustainable. The conventional taxi industry won’t die, but it will have to change. That’s good news for customers, who pay higher prices for poorer service under the regulated model.

I don't see why it should be called disruption rather than freedom. All that's happening is that people are able to associate with each other in consensual transactions on what terms they mutually agree to, which is as it should be.

It's the politicians and their parasitic cartel guilds that are disruptive of a free society.

I think it's great that people are able to get around the protection rackets that government has been able to set up, and we are only seeing the beginning of it now. This will be revolutionary. It will affect money, banking, credit, zoning, transport, and many industries that are now suffocated under the fat arse of government.

For years, elements of the taxi industry have been doing their best to alienate and lose customers. The motivation to try something else is already there.

I agree with Jardine, but aren't we too optimistic?

As the government finds that there is no other economic choice, they will order all taxis to join Uber, give Uber tax-concessions and extra rights such as the right to travel in the public-transport lanes, thus bring them under its wings just as it did with all the other big corporations.

Thus freedom would be short-lived, no individual car owners will be allowed to make their own truly-private deals and whereas currently I only use cash to pay taxi drivers, now Big Brother would know everything about your bank accounts and where you travel.

The need to control is insatiable - http://www.angelfire.com/hi/littleprince/framechapter10.html

I agree with the rest of the posters. In my experience the Australian taxi service is the poorest quality and highest priced in the world. Uber and similar services are simply a response to demand.

Down with protectionism of stagnant industries and long live capitalism! :)

I've commented here before that as the electorate becomes better educated and more affluent, party platforms will look less and less attractive to them, and there will be an increasing demand for a government which is purely rational and objective, unaffected by ideology and immune to pressure groups. Uber's tactics illustrate one way in which this could be brought about.

There are many situations in which government is important and necessary, but regulating private transport systems is not one of them. Its only job here is to get out of the way.