> Not only was it inevitable, if we were so inclined and willing to use the regulatory pen, we could've simply written into law that for Taxi's to operate, they must be well maintained and must accept all major forms of payment.
That was frequently already the case. They were required to accept credit cards but then the card reader would be "broken" and it wasn't worth anybody's time to dispute it instead of just paying in cash.
You also... don't really want laws like that. They're required to accept "all payment methods", which ones? Do they have to take American Express, even though the fees are much higher? Do they have to take PayPal if the customer has funds in a PayPal account? What about niche card networks like store cards accepted at more than one merchant? If not those and just Visa and Mastercard, you now have a law entrenching that duopoly in the law.
> Are you sick of filthy Taxis that break down? Put a regulation down that says if a cab breaks down during a trip, they owe the customer a free ride and five thousand dollars. You bet your ASS those cabs will be serviced as soon as humanly possible. This isn't rocket science y'all.
It's not rocket science, it's trade offs.
Is there a $5000 fine for a breakdown? You just made cab service much more expensive, because they're either going to have to pay the fines as a cost of doing business and then pass them on, or propylactically do excessive maintenance like doing full engine rebuilds every year because it costs less than getting caught out once, and then passing on the cost of that. And even then, there is no such thing as perfect. The cabbie paid to have the whole engine rebuilt by the dealership just yesterday and the dealer under-tightened one of the bolts when putting it back in, so there's a coolant leak? Normally that's just re-tightening the bolt and $20 worth of coolant, but now it's a $5000 fine on top of the $4000 engine rebuild.
The way you actually want to solve this is with competition, not rigid rules and onerous fines. If someone is always having breakdowns then they get bad rating, customers can see that when choosing and then opt for a different driver that costs slightly more -- but only if the cost is worth the difference to them. Maybe it's worth $2 for the difference between two stars and five but it isn't worth $50 for the difference between 4.7 and 4.8. Either way you shouldn't be deciding for people, you should be giving them the choice.