Which is the bubble?
If you look at the taxi industry here, they are basically a cartel that have organised via political favours an artificial limit in plates and therefore are creaming an absolute fortune in fares.
I feel for the drivers. They are paid utter pittance for the abuse they incur; to the point where they make more money driving for Uber than their day job. Many of the taxis are old having many hundred thousand kms.
So what do we want from a taxi industry. It really isn't hard to understand:
* Competent screened drivers who are paid a liveable wage. We get that this is not free.
* Well maintained, clean, comfortable vehicles with appropriate insurances.
* A way to book them where a driver actually turns up who drives you to your destination with courtesy. One of the last taxis I caught nearly killed us and several pedestrians going 80 through a 30 zone because we had the audacity to expect a ride to a place that was "too short"; By too short, far enough away from the airport to be impractical to walk but obviously too close for his liking.
* Reasonable fair structures, taxes and credit card surcharges.
A component of each fair must go towards each of these costs, yet the elephant in the room is the plates. Seriously it is over 10x the cost of the car itself. This means that they have to spend most of the fares they collect just to pay for the plates. Those not working for the man basically have their life savings paying off a piece of paper saying that they can carry passengers. Now I am sorry, but that is the real bubble here.
What Uber have brought to light is that the true cost of offering a taxi service is much lower than what we pay when we hop into one. I don't necessarily think Uber's cost model works out (many drivers haven't really thought through the true cost of wear and tear and depreciation on their vehicles from being involved in this), but it is definitely a step in the right direction. If the taxi industry were deliverying a service people were reasonably happy with, it would have gone nowhere.
As an occasional regular taxi customer, I expect them to realise that the fare equates to a not insignificant amount of my disposable income and well and truly covers the cost of their wage, fuel, insurances, wear and tear, car lease and a pretty handsome profit. The fact they get paid crap is because THEIR boss / industry body is screwing them, not their customers.
Icon; because bubbles can be good.