You asked why commercial and non-commercial use is handled differently (in the US). I used a taxi driver as my example, but the same applies if you're hauling big rigs across the US or delivering pizzas door to door.. In fact, none of my verbiage pertains to picking up or having passengers at all. You could replace it with "chulapa delivery guy" and it changes nothing. You're on the road a lot longer, and often exposed to more dangers.

And I doubt your current insurance covers, let's say, driving nuclear waste in your backseat from a power plant to a dump site. Which is a commercial use.

Heck, a lot of people even questioned if you read your policy correctly.

IBM's involvement was well after Linux became popular and is not the reason. I'm sure they would have used BSD if it had won by that point.

Uh no, all Unixes at that time allowed over-allocating.

It's against the law to drive without insurance. Most insurance has limits on things it will cover. Therefore, it is illegal to drive while doing things that insurance will not cover. The fact that the circumstances of these are based on a private contract makes it hard to enforce, but does not change the legality.

What the hell would be the difference for me or my car for what I use it regarding my liability towards anyone I (might) harm?

Because a professional taxi driver is on the road for 8+ hours a day, not just 1 or 2, So they have more risk. They also tend to spend a large amount of Friday and Saturday nights in the bar districts, which seems intuitively like a place loaded with inebriated pedestrians and other drivers - both risk factors.

Would it surprise you to know that the city you live in also affects car insurance rates? At least in the US...

No one gives a shit about most laws, until they are affected by the negative consequences that those laws were designed to prevent. Wait until an Uber driver smacks into your car, and his insurance refuses to cover commercial activity. Depending on your uninsured motorist coverage, you could be okay. Except, cities without well regulated mandatory insurance for cars tend to have insurance death spirals, so good luck having that 3 years from now.

If you want to call laws outdated and out of place, you have to understand why they were created and how to prevent those same issues from coming about when you repeal the law.

They totally enforce the laws to some degree. Hundreds of people get ticketed for violating the laws.

But you're talking about the process. I'm talking about the desirability. I think the laws are, in general, good for America. There's a reason they were put in place. And while they may have been captured by industry, the harms they were put in place to avoid are still out there. So my question is: Why would we want to change the law. Or, the question I was asking and you ducked was: In what way can you change the law and still avoid those harms?

most people likely to consume their services would rather have them operating just as they are than otherwise

Until their Uber driver hits someone litigous on the street. Then all of a sudden the driver and the rider (as the "employer of an independent contractor" ) are getting sued.

There's a reason the laws built up the way they did. You want to fix them, you have my blessing. But, for the love of many things, demonstrate that your fixes also solve the problem that the law was designed to solve, or tell me why it's not a problem.

There are times when it seems like I'm prepurchasing to get a discount. For cases where they're not inventing with my money, that seems reasonable. Or for artists, who are creating something non-commercial, etc.

But when I'm sponsoring engineering, I tend to agree with you.

I suppose it comes down to if I'm assuming risk of completion, or not.

There is a real difference between announcing numbers at 4pm and 5pm. In one case, trading immediately reacts and there is a crash because of momentum traders. At 5pm, the markets are closed, and the crash is anticipated. Therefore, there is less automated collapse.

Why Wall St. guys get paid so much to let computers do their work for them, I have no idea.

If next year's Big Mac only costs $0.90, then why risk investing it?

To get more moeny, duh. I mean, you're right that the mattress now offers an effective 10% or whatever, but that just means banks offering 3% are really offering 13. 13 is greater than 10.

it moves like a thinly traded penny stock

It pretty much is a thinly-traded penny stock.

Although I see problems with this I kind of doubt counterfeiting is going to be one. To successfully do this the driver/Uber would have to have access to a huge warehouse of counterfeit goods so they could exchange the real item (chosen by the customer, not the Uber driver) for a matching fake one. I just don't see that as a practical scheme for stealing goods.

if you and Wacom would embrace Bluetooth

So either the tablet is plugged into the wall or it is thick enough to contain a battery, or it has some thick part near the edge containing the battery? And I have to recharge it or replace the battery? Sorry I don't think so.