In the heady mid-decade days that marked the expansion of Uber, governments and regulators were not equipped for its coming.
Take the example of Western Australia. Uber would expand its service to a new geography, the service would begin to gain traction as patrons flocked due to animosity with the local regulated taxi service, and then the state or city governments would often threaten to prosecute a number of drivers[1].
The argument would go back and forth, and, in the end, a settlement would often be reached[2] that would license and remove the legal ambiguity surrounding Uber.
In the midst of the tussle, Uber would attempt to weaponise[3] its user base against governments that threatened it, and pitch itself as a form of minor civil disobedience.
It is clear that Uber won the battle for its existence in those years, and so the idea of the gig economy taking over began to set in.
In a prescient moment[4] in 2015, ZDNet's Stilgherrian defined the gig economy as "the current sounds-good-but-not-really buzzphrase to describe what happens to work when your job is something that lasts for 10 minutes, thanks to people's working lives being managed through hired-for-the-moment-then-dumped apps".
One only has to think of those who bought into the hype and committed to buying a vehicle in the belief that they could make a living off ride-hailing services, and learned years later[5] that they had been underpaid.
Caught by the ponderousness with Uber, those in power are now replying much quicker.
In the past week in Australia, Singaporean bike-sharing company oBike pulled out of Melbourne, following the late-May decision