Then you have things like all the types of discrimination you can think of as well as safety issues (having seatbelts, having tires with tread on them) and so on.
Nothing distinguishes transportation, from say, overpriced crappy old model cameras on Fisherman's Warf, Dead Sea cosmetics, or any other scam - other than that it's easy for the city to claim it needs to regulate.
A simple licensing and complaint system is all that is necessary.
I definitely agree a better regulatory system is possible but pretending it would be easy or simple is silly.
That doesn't work very well for tourists, who are the most likely to be scammed, and whose money is highly desirable as it represents an input to the local economy.
And regardless, creating a communist style fixed price centrally managed system is not the solution to tourists being scammed. It doesn't solve the problem, raises prices, and limits supply - it's a lose lose for everyone (except monopolists and city hall).
The regulatory framework is outdated and unnecessary.
Uber is a private car service. That's what they should stick to. Taking on taxis on multiple fronts (different cities, states, countries) is a losing (and, quite frankly, boring) proposition.
The problem, in this case, is attempting to apply SF-sourced corporatism-as-libertarianism to places other than SF. Good luck with that (and I say this as a person who uses Uber as my sole method of transportation, several times a week).
Evidence based arguments trump ideological arguments. You saying "it's a lose lose" or throwing the word "communist" in there doesn't tell me anything other than that I might be entering a religious argument instead of a reality based discussion.
Perhaps you should offer some evidence to support that assertion. By definition, a tourist is only around temporarily, whereas a complaint can take a long time to process. If a tourist has a bad experience, they're unlikely to return.
