[AlaskaErik]

I don’t think that is necessarily a good comparison. In NYC, an Uber ride typically costs MORE than a taxi ride — because it’s one of the few places where you can stand on a street corner for 30 seconds and hail a cab ride at almost any time. Uber can’t compete with that kind of convenience, so they generally serve more of a higher-end livery service market.

If that's the case, why did the price of a medallion go from $1 mil to $500,000 in the span of three years?

[Alberta's Child]

The City of New York had been studying options for expanding the medallion pool for several years. Since 2013 they have added several thousand “green cab” medallions for special cabs that can pick up passengers on city streets in the outer boroughs and northern Manhattan. I believe the goal was to add 18,000 new medallions as part of that initiative.