I'm from Italy.

This is really bad news.

Uber's entrance into the market was a great opportunity to either change another awful law/system that's in place, or create a precedent by ruling to not apply the current law. Of course, they didn't do it.

Currently, in order to be a taxi driver you have to pay a license, which costs up to €200,000 (from what I know). Since it would take too long, taxi drivers aren't obliged to give you a receipt. If you ask for one for tax purposes, they give you a piece of paper so that you can write off the expense, but they still don't have to report that to the government. How do they pay taxes? The association itself sets an estimate of how much they're supposed to make each month, that they then pay taxes on. This is many times less than what they actually make. It's a joke, unheard of for any other category (that I know of).

Most importantly, taxis provide a horrible, horrible service. They're super-expensive, to the point of being ridiculous, and known to scam people by overcharging them many times the usual fare (tourists in particular, but not only tourists, I can speak of that).

Public transportation in many cities is inadequate.

Luckily, in many cities (including mine, Florence) they're now offering great car sharing services, where you can select a car near you from the app, and use it for ~€0.25/min. There are 3 different companies doing it, so the market is very healthy. I use it regularly, buses will take me to x in 45' for €1.20, using the car sharing service I can get there in 15' for €4. For comparison, a taxi ride would cost me €15-20.

One thing I don't understand is that in Dublin, I had the impression that most Uber rides were taxi drivers—whom used both the taxi company dispatch system and Uber—and they said they'd make more money with Uber because their share was less than the taxi company's. Although I don't know much about this, I wonder if the same thing would be true in Italy.

If you want to be a taxi driver, Uber would remove having to spend €200,000 to get started (which by the way sounds like a horrible investment to me, since after that you're stuck being a taxi driver). Of course, this isn't fair to those who paid that, but I wouldn't oppose the government buying those back (perhaps with tax credits?) and then change the law. Honestly, I wouldn't oppose those people just losing the money, since they don't seem to refund restaurateurs that close down because they open a McDonald's next door, small shops when a supermarket gets open next door, programmers that make less money because of outsourcing to India, factory workers whose factory closes down and moves to Poland.

Mainly, this situation is not fair. Why not add a limited-number restaurant license that costs 200,000, without which you can't open a restaurant, to protect local restaurants? Why not create a law where Italian companies MUST produce the goods they sold on Italian soil in Italy instead of China, to protect Italian factory workers? Why not create a law that each book published MUST be printed and available at all local libraries besides released as an ebook to protect local libraries from closing because of the internet?
What's so special about taxi drivers?
Why can taxi drivers pay taxes based on a random figure they themselves provide without proof, while even if I charge a client €1 I must issue a receipt, and then KEEP IT IN PAPER FOR 10 YEARS, as I'm legally required to do?