Xavier Iturbide
5.8K posts













NYC taxi medallions hit $1.3 million each in 2013. Then Uber launched and destroyed that artificial scarcity overnight. By 2018, medallions traded for $160,000 - an 88% collapse that represents the largest peacetime transfer of wealth from rent-seekers to consumers in modern history. The taxi cartel had politicians bought and paid for (Bloomberg took $50K from taxi interests while blocking ride-sharing apps). They artificially restricted supply to maybe 13,000 yellow cabs in a city of 8 million people. You'd wait 45 minutes in the rain while empty cabs refused to go to Brooklyn. Uber didn't just compete - it obliterated the entire regulatory capture scheme. Consumers voted with their phones, choosing abundant rides over government-rationed scarcity. The medallion owners screaming about "unfair competition" sound exactly like telegraph operators complaining about the telephone (creative destruction works both ways, fellas). This is why bureaucrats hate entrepreneurs. Every successful startup exposes how unnecessary their permission slips really were...




























