Uber is nearing $10 billion in bookings, or about 50-100x as much as the largest cab companies. The need of some people to see every tech company is the underdog is ridiculous. By and large the whole point of tech entering these traditional markets is to use capital and technology to achieve scale and efficiency the small businesses playing in those spaces can't hope to match.

> Taxi corps are small, many are essentially sole proprietorships. The drivers are essentially all running their own business, but the medallion owners tend not to be huge corporations.

Do you have a source for this? I'm only familiar with Chicago numbers, but a medallion costs $360,000[1] and the top 2% of medallion owners own FORTY ONE percent of the total[2]. 3/4 of medallions are owned by corporations who own more than 2 medallions (i.e. $720,000 in up-front investment or more).

[1] http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20130913/BLOGS02/1309... [2] https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2014/06/...

I agree. I was more making the point that regulatory arbitrage only works when you attack an industry without enough clout to shut you down, but enough clout to make the market worth attacking. Good luck trying to run regulatory arbitrage around the pharmaceutical industry. There would be massive profits to be made if you did, but you can expect to spend a long time in jail if you tried.

Some argue big business is big thanks to regulation/government protection keeping competitors out, by preventing them from becoming big or entering the market in the first place.

Isn't it very similar when Uber drivers aren't allowed to compete with the taxi industry, who enjoy a government-sanctioned monopoly?

Uber has "asked forgiveness rather than asking permission" - they've made themselves indispensable in the markets they serve, and it's politically risky to shut them down, because they are serving a very real need in the transportation industry, and people don't want to see them go away. I think that Uber correctly recognized that the taxi market was under regulatory capture, and that they weren't going to be able to break into the market through legal channels, so they took a ballsy risk and decided to give it a shot anyhow.

It seems to be paying off. Massachusetts, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia have all reversed decisions which banned Uber in their jurisdictions.