The way that inappropriate laws get fixed in the US is that new laws get passed, not that people violate the laws that seem irrelevant to them. I have no objection to Uber lobbying for laws to introduce a new class of employees (and I have absolutely no objection to Uber or anyone else making life hard for the taxi lobby). I do have a strong objection to Uber deciding to treat employees in a way prohibited by law because they, on their own, think it makes more sense.<p>&quot;Legislative gridlock&quot; is a weak excuse. Plenty of legislation gets through, from PPACA (which had, and continues to have, widespread objection) to USA FREEDOM (even if you claim PATRIOT&#x27;s expiration was the result of &quot;deadlock&quot;, the replacement came a day later) to JOBS (specifically legalizing things that startups wanted to do!) to allowing people to unlock their cell phones (not really a Big Foo priority). If the people really want Uber and Airbnb -- which they seem to -- why can&#x27;t they just get a law passed? And why can&#x27;t all these innovative, well-funded startups figure out how to disrupt and fix something as obviously dysfunctional as our political system?<p>My worry is not so much with these particular ways they&#x27;re breaking the law; it seems like this is probably reasonable (though I&#x27;d still like someone other than Uber to consider it). My worry is with the loss of the rule of law, and the precedent that we&#x27;re not going to care about whether the law is followed. It&#x27;s certainly true that Uber et al. aren&#x27;t the first companies to break laws, but  this seems like a qualitative change in what laws are being broken and what the impact on society is, and a democratic society should be able to have an opinion on it.