But what about the market collapse for traditional transportation services? Yahoo’s Rick Newman took a look at the biggest market of all, New York City, to see how Uber and Lyft has impacted the taxi market. Not surprisingly, the newer services have bit into the taxi market, comparing April 2015 and 2016 numbers, but total trips dispatched per day by taxis only declined 9 percent. Uber traffic increased 121 percent, while Lyft rose 871 percent, albeit on a much smaller share of the market.
The important point to note, though, is that the market itself grew over the last five years since Uber and Lyft entered the Big Apple. “In April, taxis and ride-sharing services together provided nearly 614,000 trips per day to people in New York City,” Newman reports from the Morgan Stanley study. “That’s 25 percent more than five years ago.” Furthermore, most Uber and Lyft drivers work part-time to supplement their income. “So thousands of people still driving a cab feel the job is lucrative enough to do it full-time.”
In other words, breaking down artificial barriers to markets does not create chaos – it creates opportunities. Would the transportation business in New York City have grown 25 percent in five years if still restricted to the medallion operations? Would we even have known of that pent-up demand without new-technology entrants Uber and Lyft?
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