Captonian here. The summary is a bit misleading. In South Africa there are two nationwide requirements for anyone (including Uber drivers) to transport members of the public. They must be personally licensed to drive (i.e. have a valid drivers license), and also licensed to transport members of the public (a public drivers licence, which requires not having a criminal record, not having ever had your driver's license revoked, etc...). In Cape Town specifically, there's an additional by-law that means the vehicle must be licensed. This requirement is the case in most municipalities in South Africa, although some municipalities classify Uber's service as "chartered transportation" and Cape Town classifies it as a "metered taxi service".
A local talk radio show had both a representative from Uber and a representative from the city’s Safety and Security department. Both Uber and the city confirmed that Uber only checks the national requirements, i.e. the driver's credentials. Uber doesn't check that the vehicle is licensed to transport. To be fair, Uber apparently goes above and beyond the minimum checks regarding the driver, doing deeper background checks etc, but they do not check that the vehicle is licensed. All of the impounded vehicles were impounded due to a lack of the vehicle license. Uber seems to be trying to spin things saying that the City's bureaucracy is way too slow, but what it comes down to is the fact that are plenty of metered taxi's already, they need to be licensed, and there are a limited number of licenses. Uber's been categorised as a metered taxi service, so no new uber drivers are going to be given vehicle licenses. Uber wants to be reclassified as a chartered transport service, and here things get a little fuzzy. As far as I can tell, a chartered transport service requires an upfront statement of cost, i.e. the driver/company has to provide a quote for the proposed route. Airport shuttles fall under this for example, because they charge a fixed amount per suburb/area, they don't charge per kilometre. I'm not sure how exactly uber determines the fare, but it's not fixed, so technically, they're not a chartered service.
So it doesn't look like it's the city's fault. They're following the law. Now, it's open to discussion whether Uber is at fault for not ensuring their driver's vehicles are licensed, or whether it should be the driver's responsibility, but from the consumer side, I'd say the expectation is that Uber has done their due dilligence.
While I agree with most of what you say, including your conclusion that the complete removal of copyright will mean de facto replacement by a patronage system, you miss two crucial points. Firstly, the fundamental difference between the arts in before the 19th century and today is that the distribution costs are now negligible, especially if the distribution is digital, but even if the distribution is physical. It costs less to produce most art in physical form and more importantly to reproduce than ever before in human history, yet prices do not come down. There's also a clear divorce between production costs and retail costs. A new DVD from a block buster movie with a budget in the 100's of millions costs the same or less to buy than the latest top 10 CDs with production budgets in the 10's of millions. Consumers get this, they understand they're being screwed by the CD producers. They're being charged what the CD producers think the market will bear... except clearly the market won't bear it, because piracy is rampant. Music producers (especially) love to harp on about lost sales, but flat out refuse to consider piracy as market indicator. Let's assume there were a full proof way prevent piracy. Sales would stay pretty flat, or I suspect drop a fair bit. People pirate way more than they could ever afford to buy, and if suddenly forced to buy everything, they would pick and choose a lot more, like back in the 80's and early 90's when kids saved their pocket money to buy that one album they'd been eyeing for three months. Concert and performance revenue would probably fall off (except for really big, well publicised, acts, i.e. the guys who are already coining it) because of lack of exposure. CD prices would be forced down. Lack of exposure is why I think CD sales might actually drop in this scenario. The same argument holds for other types of digitally reproducible art.
Secondly, the content-creation (for want of a better term) industry is a lot like the the professional sports industry. We only really here about the super stars, who are 1% of all the attempts at success. The current copyright regime is already in effect a patronage system, except the "rich dudes" are rich corporations who decide who they will promote. Yes consumers can vote with their money, which only constrains who will be promoted to largely popular inoffensive artists, whereas in a true patronage system the individual tastes of the rich dudes funded a wider variety of creative efforts. There are also a lot more "rich dudes" now than ever before. They're called the middle class. They have a fair amount of disposable income. No single person in the middle class has the money to fund an artist in the same way as traditional patronage systems, but there are vastly more potential consumers for art than ever before in human history, and what's more is the skills required to reproduce a performance and the costs involved are way less than before too, allowing artists to either manage distribution themselves, or pay substantially less than previously to someone else to do it for them.
I view piracy as a form of civil disobedience protesting inflated prices. If digital content were reduced to 25% I'm pretty sure sales would more than quadruple. Also, considering the percentages the artists get paid, they're getting screwed the least by piracy. I know that there are plenty of other people involved in music and film production, but for the most part, they all get paid salaries, not royalties. So they're not getting screwed by piracy.
P.S. I'm viewing things from a South African perspective, where minimum wage is approximately $1 an hour and new release DVDs cost about $18 ~ $25, and a new CD will set you back around $20. E-books range widely from $1 to $15, and physical books are minimum of $25 hard cover, $12 paperback. At minimum wage South Africans have to work 2 and a half days to afford a DVD/CD/Ebook/book.
It does NOT require creativity. It requires logic. I do this for a living too, and have done so for 30 years. Two people trying to solve the same problem (developing a communications protocol, because that's what an API is) are almost always going to come up with the same solution. Even if they don't, the number of possible solutions is small, and it's NOT a creative choice picking one above the other, it's a technical choice.
The only thing we have going for us, is that the vast majority of us won't raise the eyebrows of any government employees in our lifetimes. The sad part is that a lonely few will, and they'll be dealt with unfairly and harshly.
Which means it falls to us as the vast majority to hold those who abuse their governmental power to account when they deal with someone unfairly. A duty, I'm sad to say, we are all falling woefully short of...
And before anyone bitches about me just bitching, here is the first and most important step you can take. Inform Yourself! Check your putative representative's voting records, and compare it to what he's saying. Go out and but a newspaper from the "other side", to get balanced view of things. Challenge your friends when they make wild, or even just unsubstantiated, statements. A phrase I like personally (from CSI) "state your source". It's gentle, and mostly non-offensive, and goes down well as a pop-culture reference. And lastly, if you don't have the resources to fact check something, suggest it to a fact checking agency. They don't work for free often, but if you put something on their radar, they can at least look in to it when some suitably close paid for work comes in. Better yet, tip off the opposing politician's campaign, and get them to pay for it.
No amount of careful planning will ever replace dumb luck.