I enjoyed reading Mr Donald Low's forceful commentary on Oct 27 ("Uber: To regulate or not to regulate?"). It is also receiving a lot of favourable comments online.

This is because there exists a strong antipathy against choosy cab drivers, and the fact that Uber (and other ride-matching apps) has made many consumers happy by providing more choice.

Mr Low framed the battle as one between Uber and taxi companies, and not cab drivers.

I disagree that taxi drivers are not adversely affected by these apps.

Tech-savvy younger cab drivers would know better how to leverage these apps. But older cabbies - for whom driving cabs is their sole source of income and who have been driving taxis most of their lives - will surely be adversely affected by more cars for hire on the road.

Cabbies have to cover their daily rental and fuel costs before they earn income for themselves.

Levelling the playing field can happen in a few ways. One is by deregulating taxi services down, or regulating Uber-matched services up, or both.

The battle between Uber and taxi services worldwide is a generational issue.

The young are happy to use apps like Uber (whose drivers are also of a similar age group), while governments seek to protect the older drivers who would otherwise need more social support.

N. Varaprasad