I was picked up at Prague airport by a tennis coach driving for Uber recently. It was raining that day. When it rained, he told me, he had to cancel lessons and loose (or rather not make any) money. But also, when it was raining, there was more demand for taxis, so he would always take his car and drive people around the city to compensate for the income loss.

Let that sink in for a minute.

I was moved. That was one of the most beautiful examples of not only Uber’s value for the regular folk, but also the works of an unhampered free market and its unparalleled ability to efficiently allocate resources.

Had it not been for Uber, that guy would have to find presumably more difficult way to improve his well-being. His car would be sitting in his driveway and all natural resources, labor and capital which were put into its production would not be used whole day. And I would have to rely on overpriced and arrogant taxi drivers of a company which corrupted itself to a monopoly on taxi service from the airport.

We had never met before and we might not see each other again, but the free market and simple search for profit opportunity brought about the interaction which made both our lives a bit more pleasent that day. Yet, there is plenty of politicians and regulators who try to persuade us, that the world would be better off without P2P economy and they present full laundry list of the most ridiculous arguments drafted by taxi, hotel, movie or any other industrial lobby which is filling their pockets. I’m not blaming them. They need to do exactly that. Otherwise it would become clear that in fact world would be better off without them, not without likes of Uber or Airbnb.

No amount of brains, computing power and information would be able to design top-down the exchange that happened at that airport. Then and there, P2P economy and free market beat the crap out of central planning and any arguments for its existence.