Tech As A Fig Leaf To Ignore Bad Regulations

It would have been easy to ban services like Uber and Lyft as violating taxi cab rules. 

It would be easy to ban Airbnb as violating hotel rules and some localities are imposing new regulations to regulate Airbnb type land uses (often under the rubric of "short-term rentals"). 

The federal government clearly has the right to regulate currencies and interstate commerce and could have banned crypto-currencies if it wanted to (and is heading in the direction of banning many individual crypto-currencies). 

And, generative artificial intelligence is too new to know what will become of it (although unduly restrictive copyright laws are well known to be a drag on the economy).

Certainly, at least the first three examples are simply pouring old wine into new skins, to which the tech involved is really just window dressing. 

But maybe it's O.K. that these new Internet based platforms have provided a forum for regulators to rethink outdated or just ill-conceived regulations of the activities in question that persist mainly due to inertia and self-interested lobbying from the beneficiaries of the existing regime. These "tech" innovations in our economy may be adding value, even though the value isn't truly derived from the tech itself.