I am of two minds when it comes to the announcement today that the NYC taxi commission will permit companies like Uber and Lyft to update, when the companies wish, the mobile apps that serve as the front end for the ridesharing platforms.
My first instinct is to breathe a sigh of relief that even the NYC taxi commission eventually rejected the patently ridiculous notion that an international technology platform should have its update schedule in anyway dictated by the parochial interests of a local transportation fiefdom.
My second instinct is to grit my teeth in frustration that, in the face of the overwhelming transformation going on in the world today because of technology platforms offered by the likes of Uber and Lyft, anyone would even think to ask the question “should I ask the NYC taxi commission whether or not I can update the app on my users’ smartphones?”
That said, it’s important to take the world as you find it, not as you wish it to be, and so I want to highlight some items from the decision that deserve approbation.
Meera Josh, the NYC Taxi Commission chairperson and CEO, had this to say of the proposed rule:
We re-stylized the rules so they’re tech agnostic because our point is not to go after one particular technology – things change quicker than we do – it’s to provide baseline consumer protection and driver safety requirements[.]
I love that the commission gets this. The real power in the technology that drives the sharing economy is that it can change quickly in response to consumer demand. Further, regulators can offer value to these markets only when they understand that the nature of work and services are changing, and that their core justification as consumer protection agencies necessarily requires them to adjust when and how they intervene.
Although there is always more work to be done to make room for these entrepreneurial platforms (for instance, the NYC rules appear to require that all on-demand drivers – including the soccer mom down the street driving for Lyft – be licensed through the commission), this is generally forward-thinking. I hope that more municipalities across the country take notice, and that the relevant regulators follow suit in repositioning themselves as partners with these innovative companies.
