Uber

[Undertoad]

Why do professional taxis cost more?

The biggest reason is licensing of taxi medallions. You can't drive a yellow cab in NYC if you don't have a few hundred thousand dollars for a medallion. It used to be over $1,000,000 for a single car, before Uber.

And then there's cost of sales, advertising, business insurance, liability, the real estate to warehouse all the cars, effects of regulation, cost of recruiting, hiring, and maintenance of personnel in a specific location, hiring people on a specific schedule where they may be idle, hiring managers as well as operators, having enough cars available for unpredictable conditions...

And are you aware of "surge pricing" where ride sharing can be more expensive than professional taxis, but professional taxis are nowhere to be found?