The NYC taxi medallion business was a huge racket for decades. It was tightly controlled by a few large owners among a small number of independent operators. There was a monopoly and every time a single medallion would come up for auction it would sell for millions. Now they are worth a small fraction of that. Owners who saw the light of Uber changed their business model and have succeeded while those who clung to the old model were left in the dust.
The only cabs that LEGALLY were allowed to pick up “hails” as in “hail a cab” were medallioned yellow cabs and the city limited the number of medallions. Yellow cabs were notorious for not going into certain neighborHOODS so the city started looking the other way when “gypsy” (non-medallion/radio dispatched) cabs started servicing those areas picking up passengers without being dispatched. Some yellow cab fleets started radio dispatching as well as curbside pick-ups.
As all this was taking place and owner/operators were retiring or just getting out of the business, the fleets were buying up their medallions at auctions with a steady stream of new immigrants, legal and illegal, to do the driving
Then came cell phones.
Now you could call a gypsy or “car service” from anywhere. The fleet owners saw the handwriting on the wall and, though not folding up shop, started selling off a lot of their medallions. Who bought them? The drivers that had been working for them.
Financing was arranged so these newly minted owner/operators could “afford” these tags. Quite often there were tie-ins between the fleets selling the tags and whatever entity was doing the financing (if not the fleet itself).*
Then came Uber and Lyft.
In order to keep up with payments on the tags, the new owner/operators had to run the cabs 24/7 so they would employ other immigrants they knew to take shifts. Over crowded rooming houses began to resemble Poney Express stations. Cab would pull up, driver would get out with all his stuff, new driver with all *his* stuff would get in and pull out. No time to clean or maintain the interior and so you get the filthy, smelly cabs of today.
*....This was about the time I left Fun City and moved to America, so from here I’m going on second hand info.