If they don’t want to follow the terms of the taxi license fuck them. Universal service, take every fare, don’t discriminate by race. If Uber and Lyft destroy the entire taxi industry it can’t come soon enough.
I don't want anyone working a job to live a subsistence lifestyle, but taxis have also always been a nightmare for me (in the US and every country I've ever been in) and I never want to go back. Uber and Lyft are vastly superior and less stressful experiences for the customer in every way. I'd like them to be good experiences for the drivers, too, but the answer isn't to scrap the whole thing and go back to taxis.
In some countries, the meter is just for show and every ride is a negotiated fare. Also, sometimes it's hard to distinguish taxi from pirate. Heck, in some places, even the licensed drivers are notorious for robbing tourists. Yikes.
A living wage and convenient cabs don't need to be mutually exclusive. Also, the adversarial nonsense was more than just a lack of convenience. Some drivers are just not nice people and managed to get away with it.
Maybe the causality goes the other way, people like that might have difficulty finding other jobs.
Most low-paying jobs aren't known for having lots of angry/rude people working them. Probably because in most jobs you have to work with other people or interact with customers within view of your co-workers/manager.
At the expense of the security of the drivers serving you. You get convenience, they get a subsistence lifestyle.