You know, I don't particularly like the "sharing economy" movement. The whole thing seems predicated on deregulation of industries that I honestly think should be regulated.
Airbnb acts, essentially, as a parent company for a hotel chain without any of the actual power or responsibility of the traditional holding company. Uber/Lyft act as car dispatchers without any of the power or responsibility of traditional taxi/limo companies. The ability of these companies to outcompete traditional companies on price in their spaces is due to their choice to not follow regulations as much as possible. The reasoning Uber gives in the article for not being in violation of the law sounds suspiciously like the reasoning given by escorts ("You're paying for my time"). If this trend continues we will see additional disregard for regulation with more and more absurd reasoning ("We aren't breaking the law on regulation because we are simply a technology company that connects your phone with another phone who happens to be in the possession of a guy in a car and whatever happens after that is between two consenting adults"). How far can this race to the bottom go before our search for low costs starts to war with our sense of personal safety and social responsibility?
As an aside, I use Uber pretty regularly in any city where it's available simply because I generally don't have the local taxi numbers. Does this make me a hypocrite? Probably.