Dengashinobi wrote:
Yes we oppose regulations for some good reasons. First it's the disbelief that the car manufacturing companies have any incentive at all to produce substandard cars. Consumer demand and competition will orient manufacturers towards ever better quality of production.
This is certainly not guaranteed at all. Ever heard of
planned obsolescence, for example?
Dengashinobi wrote:
Have you ever tried to run a business or service? Do you know how difficult it is to please customers?
For small businesses, attracting and pleasing customers can indeed be extremely difficult. But not for well-established big manufacturers in industries that are capital-intensive, with not a lot of competition because the cost of entry into the market is just too high.
How easy or difficult it is to please the customer depends on many factors.
Some industries are intrinsically at least somewhat insulated from the consequences of bad quality. For example, if a lithium battery explodes, the consumer is unlikely even to remember which brand it was. The battery was likely concealed inside another product, and the explosion will have destroyed the battery label along with everything else it might have destroyed.
Dengashinobi wrote:
Second argument is that regulations require a vast number of bureaucrats to check every product. It's basically impossible to check every product circulating in the market.
Industries vary in how much (if at all) they need be regulated. The stakes are much higher for some industries than for others. For example, the stakes are much higher for medical equipment than for video games.
Dengashinobi wrote:
Third argument is who gets to decide what is the quality of an aprooved product and that of another one that it's not approved?
In my opinion, regulatory agencies should be advised by committees of advisors, where the advisors would include representatives of the relevant industry (including, specifically, some of the smaller producers as well as the larger ones)
and representatives of some consumer advocacy groups or equivalent thereof, plus possibly other stakeholders (e.g. environmentalist groups), depending on the specific industry. The committee members would each air their various concerns, with the aim of arriving at a reasonable, well-informed compromise.
Dengashinobi wrote:
Do the bureaucrats on their ivory tower know better than the consumer what works for him/her?
Different kinds of products differ in the degree to which the consumer is able to evaluate the quality of the product.
Dengashinobi wrote:
Fourth argument is corruption. Lobbying being the legsl form of corruption. Big companies are usually the ones lobbying for regulations because usually they are the only ones that can pay the extra costs that compliance to those regulations requires. This is a way to put out of competition smaller companies and start-ups. Ultimately the consumer pays those
extra costs and simultaneously cannot choose another company for the same services since the other company cannot pay for the extra costs that the regulation requires.
This is indeed a real problem. One way to address it might be to require that representatives of the smaller producers be given a voice in the drafting of regulations. Also it needs to become easier for small producers to be informed of what the regulations are.
Dengashinobi wrote:
An example was how big social media companies supported the legislation for fact checkers because in this way they eliminated any possible start-up from growing and out competing them. Because the startups wouldn't be able to pay for services from fact check companies.
Some kinds of regulations should be applied only to the larger companies, in the first place. The above is a good example. Obviously, a lie that trends on Twitter can do a lot more damage than a lie someone posts here on Wrong Planet.
Dengashinobi wrote:
There is also the possibility of other forms of corruption. Like paying government employees for not approving a product from a competitor or approve yours.
Corruption is indeed a real problem that affects law enforcement more generally too. Corruption and the prevention thereof is an issue that doesn't get enough attention from either side of the political divide.
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16 Mar 2023, 6:53 am
