Crony Capitalism Struck Down By Cab Riders In D.C.
From the WSJ, Uber, a SF smart phone app that offers consumers easy access to private livery services on demand, had disrupted the D.C. taxi market by offering nicer rides at reasonable prices:

Washington has historically had a better taxi market than, say, New York City because it hasn't allowed a cartel of too few taxi licenses.

But the taxi lobby is still powerful, and Uber's success sent the city council into a tizzy. Democratic Councilwoman Mary Cheh introduced an amendment that would have set the minimum fare for an Uber ride five times higher than that of taxis.

Then Uber fought back. On Monday CEO Travis Kalanick posted on the company's website that it was "hard for us to believe that an elected body would choose to keep prices of a transportation service artificially high," adding that Uber was "seriously concerned about punitive government intervention in a well functioning marketplace." He asked customers to sign a petition and contact city council members.

And contact they did. Within hours, inboxes were flooded with thousands of email complaints. Uber didn't post a form letter on its website, so all of the emails were personally composed by consumers. An #UberDCLove campaign erupted on Twitter. Ms. Cheh's office received hundreds of calls, according to a report from the DCist website.

So the city council did something that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. It struck the Uber amendment from a larger taxi regulation bill and agreed to let the company continue to operate in Washington through December 31 without imposing new regulations.