We have blanket regulations, in addition to laws such as these, because when you're sick from those radium elixirs, you don't want to have to be spending time and money suing your pharmacist on top of it. (Or searching for a class action, for that matter.) We also have them because there's a point past which enforcing individual violations is much too inefficient.

Isn't that what these pesky "regulations" are? You know - "laws".

That's the whole point - the problem is not with regulations or laws as such, but with harmful regulations or laws.

Protecting consumers from fraud is a good thing, as it promotes good service and (indirectly through increased trust) grows the economy, and makes people/customers/voters happier.

Protecting companies from their competitors is a bad thing, as it promotes bad service from being outcompeted, and (by allowing inefficiencies to stay unchecked) hampers economic growth, and prevents people/customers/voters from choosing what they want.

> So enact laws that force drivers who offer rides professionally to have insurance.

Those laws exist. They are called taxi regulations. Uber is flouting them.

Look, Uber can comply with all of the rules that taxicab companies have to. Uber chooses not to because it is more profitable to ignore the laws.

No sympathy for Uber. They could have played within the rules and still been disruptive--they chose to ignore the laws and now are getting bashed for it.

I think you're missing the nuance of what timr is saying.

He's not saying that the regulations that the Seattle City Council chose to impose were the right ones to impose. He's saying that the inverse argument--that there should not be any regulations at all--isn't correct either.