Well, not really.<p>It&#x27;s not like the government took away the rights of taxi drivers to drive people around. It&#x27;s just that there&#x27;s a new entrant now, and they actually need to compete.<p>In fact, taxi medallion prices went down post-2011 (before Uber) because the government released more, because consumers (i.e. everyday people) complained about crazy prices. You don&#x27;t see the government compensating people there.<p>It would be like if the government handed out licenses to build 1000 apartments.<p>Then, they realised, jeez, house prices are crazy, we better issue more licenses. Or we better re-zone to allow super-high density apartments, or allow people to sub-let apartment (cause in this make-believe world, that wasn&#x27;t possibly before).<p>Would the original 1000 apartment owners be clamoring for government handouts?