Regardless of whether its classified as a digital service or not, the spirit of these taxi and even rental laws and hotel laws (applicable to AirBNB) are grounded in protection of consumers and communities in general. While these laws need updating in many cases, Uber and AirBNB shouldn't be exempt from them especially when the price differences being offered by them are only possible due to them skirting the laws.

For what its worth, they did "disrupt" the economies in question and made the incumbents appreciate the consumer more, but also profited highly from it. Now its time to stop the free lunch and even the playing field.