The new plates are expected to net the Barr government $5000 a year each in lease fees; an eventual total of $710,000 a year.  This should help offset the revenue lost when the lease fees for government-owned plates were slashed from $20,000 to $5,000 in 2015/2016.

Because the government lease fee effectively dictates what private plate owners can charge taxi operators to lease their plates their incomes have also plummeted.

While the latest releases will be staged there is no doubt their creation will further dilute the value of ACT taxi plates which were changing hands for up to $300,000 pre-Uber.

Those prices are apparently now just a memory. Within 12 months of Uber's local launch there were more than 1000 operators on local roads.

The release of the extra plates, which will lift the cap to 500 from 358, is the first part of a double whammy ACT Taxi Plate Owners Association chair, Phil Button, fears could bankrupt some of his members.

He fears for the mental health of many, citing cases where they had broken down in despair.

The ACT government's decision not to offer compensation is at odds with what has occurred in other jurisdictions.

By 2016 Victoria was offering owners $100,000 for their first plate and $50,000 for second and subsequent plates.

South Australia was offering $30,000 and NSW and Western Australia were offering $20,000.

While these sums were well below what most plate holders had paid, they did represent a recognition that by allowing ride-share operators into what was once a tightly regulated market, governments had caused economic harm.

The irony, that this harm was caused by a government that has been happy to make substantial sums of money off them for years, is not lost on Canberra's taxi plate owners.

"Over the past 10 years the ACT Government has been in the business of operating taxis by releasing taxi plates over time and becoming a major player and "price fixer," according to Mr Button [Letters, page 15].

"It has shown little regard for the plate owners who invested in a product sold to them as a going concern in a regulated industry by that very same ACT Government."

Mr Button, and his fellows, want the government to acknowledge plate owners had entered the industry with the reasonable expectation their interests would be protected.

While the government cannot be blamed for the technological disruption that has wrought havoc on the taxi industry worldwide, it does have to take ownership of the way in which ride sharing was introduced to Canberra.

Given many of the decisions that were made seem to have been less than optimal, and to the detriment of existing stakeholders, the claim for compensation seems fair.

That said, it is also incumbent on taxi operators to adopt new technologies, including upgrading some of the older inventory in their vehicle fleets and adopting smart phone friendly booking services, to maximise user flexibility and make their service as competitive as it can be.