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Comment by zaidf | Hacker News Reader

You can apply your logic to basically any entity in history to belittle them. Everything can be positioned as a "massive case of blah" if that is your goal.

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No you can't. Was there ever a law explicitly saying coding an OS was illegal? Versus operating a cab company without registering with the government to prove compliance with laws already in place to deal with those? Or similarly running an illegal hotel out of your house?

Disagree. Transistor, car, heck even the iPhone (and I say this as a massive hater against apple) are not describable by this. Neither is anything which 1) actually solves a problem 2) in a legal way (Airbnb is pushing legislation, Uber is breaking it, and it appears lending club simply commited fraud)

"Tesla is just growing off of government subsidies!"

etc.

No, making cars was never outright illegal. Operating a cap company, (or rather an illegal one), without proper licensing was. Operating a hotel out of your house was. Nice strawman.

Uhhh it was basically illegal to make cars in the US from ~1903 to 1911 due to restrictive licensing policies aimed at excluding competitors from the market: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Licensed_Automo...

Ford Motor Co produced cars without such a license and eventually a case went to court. Ford initially lost but then the ruling was overturned.

But hasn't professional licensing and regulation gone a bit too far when driving someone in your car for money is supposedly illegal? What's the crime in that?

For what it's worth, this economist agrees: https://mobile.twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/746483638158561...

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