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title: "You don't see much sympathy for cab companies these days.  Those who…"
date: 2013-11-20
source: facebook
type: Archer T. Ships updated his status.
---

# You don't see much sympathy for cab companies these days.  Those who…

*November 20, 2013 · Facebook*

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You don\'t see much sympathy for cab companies these days. Those who try ridesharing services like Lyft or Uber are generally thrilled. Most people see taxi industry calls for regulation or licensing requirements for ridesharing services as self-serving attempts to stifle competition.\
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Yet Uber and Lyft only exist now because they were able to grow in the regulatory crack created by the internet. Cab companies didn\'t realize the threat they posed until it was too late. Now there\'s a constituency for them, and political will to fight back against regulatory overreach.\
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What if the cab companies had been faster to act? What if they had stifled the new companies early on? We\'d never know what we were missing, because Uber and Lyft would\'ve been stillborn.\
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Yet many of the same people who see how cab cartels use licensing and regulation to stifle competition, don\'t see how cartels in medicine use the same techniques to stifle innovative competitors. If anything, they call for \_more\_ regulation.\
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Consider that a single clinical trial costs in the neighborhood of \$100 million\--and the FDA often requires multiple clinical trials\--and you have an inkling of the barrier to entry in the healthcare market.\
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How many Ubers and Lyfts in the healthcare market were strangled at birth by FDA regulations?\
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The FDA requires that all new medicines be proven \"safe and efficacious\". Yet no scientific studies were done on the FDA regulations themselves to show that they actually improved health.\
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Given that FDA wields the power of life and death over every citizen, should we not demand the same level of care of the FDA that we demand of healthcare companies? When a drug fails to meet FDA guidelines, the company is expected to recall the drug. Therefore, should we not expect that all new and existing regulations be recalled until they\'ve been proven \"safe and efficacious\"?
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