3 ms·

Why would they fear regulation? Their competitors become subject to the same restrictions.

by adrusi 10y ago

Declanomous 10y ago
Their competitors may be subject to the same regulations, but new regulations force companies to develop products that comply with the new regulations. R&D is a huge expense, and you can't guarantee the product you develop is going to be better than your competitors. Furthermore, their competitors might already have a product which meets the new regulations, or one which can be easily modified to meet them. This can lead to a financial advantage, but it can also mean the competitor has a period where they are the only product on the market.
- fmihaila 10y ago
  Regulation demanding not to screw your customers doesn't seem like such a big burden to me.
  - 6DM 10y ago
    I fear it would never meet the paper as "don't screw your customers." It would be something more along the lines of, "Cartridges should be at least the size of (exact dimensions of existing HP cartridges) and work a reasonable amount of time." To which HP could easily counter, "reasonable" is dependent on freshness and quality of the lines or some bs like that. Edit: to clarify, I agree with you that regulation to the consumers benefit would be good, but am assuming that the law written would just be to HP's benefit anyway
    - fmihaila 10y ago
      > to clarify, I agree with you that regulation to the consumers benefit would be good, but am assuming that the law written would just be to HP's benefit anyway A more hopeful, less cynical view would be that consumer protection laws do exist, and it's reasonable to assume that in the absence of any such laws, sellers would certainly try to get away with much more than they currently are. So regulation does work, at least to some extent. To be sure, I don't know that new regulation is needed in this particular case. HP may have broken an existing law already, but I'm not a lawyer. The bigger point is that lawmakers deal with ambiguity all the time, and if they can be convinced to make a law for a purpose, they surely have the means to do it. The convincing is the hard part, which is why taking issues like this one into the political arena is sometimes necessary.
tehmaco 10y ago
They'll still need to spend resources (and so will earn reduced profit) updating processes/code/etc to comply with the regs, plus ongoing costs to ensure compliance.
- fmihaila 10y ago
  They actually _spent_ resources to ensure that non-hp cartridges are treated differently. If they had been prevented by law to do it (and maybe they are), they would have saved money!

Why would they fear regulation? Their competitors become subject to the same restrictions.

by adrusi 10y ago

Why would they fear regulation? Their competitors become subject to the same restrictions.

Their competitors may be subject to the same regulations, but new regulations force companies to develop products that comply with the new regulations. R&D is a huge expense, and you can't guarantee the product you develop is going to be better than your competitors. Furthermore, their competitors might already have a product which meets the new regulations, or one which can be easily modified to meet them. This can lead to a financial advantage, but it can also mean the competitor has a period where they are the only product on the market.

fmihaila 10y ago
Regulation demanding not to screw your customers doesn't seem like such a big burden to me.
- 6DM 10y ago
  I fear it would never meet the paper as "don't screw your customers." It would be something more along the lines of, "Cartridges should be at least the size of (exact dimensions of existing HP cartridges) and work a reasonable amount of time." To which HP could easily counter, "reasonable" is dependent on freshness and quality of the lines or some bs like that. Edit: to clarify, I agree with you that regulation to the consumers benefit would be good, but am assuming that the law written would just be to HP's benefit anyway
  - fmihaila 10y ago
    > to clarify, I agree with you that regulation to the consumers benefit would be good, but am assuming that the law written would just be to HP's benefit anyway A more hopeful, less cynical view would be that consumer protection laws do exist, and it's reasonable to assume that in the absence of any such laws, sellers would certainly try to get away with much more than they currently are. So regulation does work, at least to some extent. To be sure, I don't know that new regulation is needed in this particular case. HP may have broken an existing law already, but I'm not a lawyer. The bigger point is that lawmakers deal with ambiguity all the time, and if they can be convinced to make a law for a purpose, they surely have the means to do it. The convincing is the hard part, which is why taking issues like this one into the political arena is sometimes necessary.

tehmaco 10y ago

They'll still need to spend resources (and so will earn reduced profit) updating processes/code/etc to comply with the regs, plus ongoing costs to ensure compliance.

fmihaila 10y ago
They actually _spent_ resources to ensure that non-hp cartridges are treated differently. If they had been prevented by law to do it (and maybe they are), they would have saved money!