Unless government intervenes in the market, there's likely no reason why demand for Uber services will decline. Last year was the first time more people used Uber in New York than city cabs. In July 2017, Uber had 289,000 average daily rides versus 277,000 for medallion taxis.
This story, in a nutshell, is a classic example of regulatory capture. The TLC, by serving the interests of the industry it regulated rather than customers of the taxi industry, allowed an enormous gap between supply and demand to open. It was into this void that ride hailing apps like Uber and Lyft rushed, exploiting powerful market forces. No one should be surprised these services exploded in popularity; it is living testimony to the reality that trying to thwart market forces for decades eventually has huge repercussions. Even the courts understood this, with one Queens (New York) County judge telling medallion owners to “Compete with Uber or die.”
Of course there are other elements to this sad tale -- epic greed and corruption, rent extraction and economic ignorance. But the bottom line is that the parties concerned made a giant mess of this, and now they are left to harvest their rotting crop.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.