New York City officials on Wednesday abruptly abandoned plans to rein in Uber, dropping a fiercely contested proposal to cap the company’s growth in its largest market. That’s a good result, because as Mitchell Moss, director of the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy at NYU, commented, it signals “that the days of taxi industry cartels are over.”

Yet the even better lesson is that competition, if left unregulated — without political or regulatory barriers protecting incumbents — can work quickly to correct market failures. The problem in New York for decades has ben a shortage of taxi availability on rainy days and during rush times.  Here:

Consumers have become too attached to apps like Uber’s that now make ordering a car as easy as two clicks on a smartphone. That base of users has now in many cities proven more powerful than the company’s not insignificant opposition, from traditional taxi providers and labor critics.

Uber triumphs as New York City officials abandon plans to limit transportation company | WashPost.