4 ms·

An "some form" means some faceless bureaucrat fuckhead, who's having a lousy day (after reading my comment!) rubber-stamps "NOPE".... or is just lost. These ar

by kefka 10y ago

An "some form" means some faceless bureaucrat fuckhead, who's having a lousy day (after reading my comment!) rubber-stamps "NOPE".... or is just lost. These are barriers to trade. And we got to this place with death by a thousand regulation cuts. Can't do this. Can't do that. Cant do this on that day while doing that instead of this, without willing out volumes of forms. And you wonder why compliance costs are stupid high? (Don't get me wrong, I hold to a mixture of communism and capitalism - I think something like GNU can be done for nearly everything, but there's room for making money as well. I just categorically disagree with the volume of regulations. It makes people criminals via incapability of understanding the law.)

ashark 10y ago
OTOH too little regulation can easily mean no-one trusting a brand they don't recognize as large and well-established to even reach the standard of not killing them, let alone being any good. Personally I'm already there with lots of stuff. I'm aware that it's letting certain companies collect rents, but it's generally not worth my time and the extra risk to track down another brand that might be acceptably reliable and safe, assuming they haven't decided to burn whatever little reputation they've built up for some short-term profit by swapping their once-decent product for crap while keeping the price and model info the same after all the reviews I read were written. That's also a barrier to entry. Economies are tricky things :-/
matt4077 10y ago
Well, considering your username, I'm sure you may end up in those Kafkaesque situations more than usual... But, seriously: This nightmare is one of the stories we tell each other. But, for most companies, it's just not true. I've started four or five companies. Mostly software, one that sells actual (government-certified organic) food, one that mostly worked for governments (including the defense sector). In all that time, I've never felt like regulation prevented me from doing anything. Once or twice, I had to submit some form that I thought was overkill. But in fact I doubt there was ever a year where I spend more than two or three days net on government bureaucracy. I know that the situation may be different for construction or airplane startups (at least I hope it is). But this sort of hyperbole is just a lie that doesn't improve by repetition. If anything, I've been surprised by how little regulation there sometimes is. Look at AirBnB or Uber or drones: Who would've though that you could (for a time) fly a model airplane in Heathrow's final approach corridor and only get a "we're looking into it and engaging in a dialog with all interested parties" as a reply?

by kefka 10y ago

ashark 10y ago

OTOH too little regulation can easily mean no-one trusting a brand they don't recognize as large and well-established to even reach the standard of not killing them, let alone being any good. Personally I'm already there with lots of stuff. I'm aware that it's letting certain companies collect rents, but it's generally not worth my time and the extra risk to track down another brand that might be acceptably reliable and safe, assuming they haven't decided to burn whatever little reputation they've built up for some short-term profit by swapping their once-decent product for crap while keeping the price and model info the same after all the reviews I read were written. That's also a barrier to entry. Economies are tricky things :-/

matt4077 10y ago

Well, considering your username, I'm sure you may end up in those Kafkaesque situations more than usual... But, seriously: This nightmare is one of the stories we tell each other. But, for most companies, it's just not true. I've started four or five companies. Mostly software, one that sells actual (government-certified organic) food, one that mostly worked for governments (including the defense sector). In all that time, I've never felt like regulation prevented me from doing anything. Once or twice, I had to submit some form that I thought was overkill. But in fact I doubt there was ever a year where I spend more than two or three days net on government bureaucracy. I know that the situation may be different for construction or airplane startups (at least I hope it is). But this sort of hyperbole is just a lie that doesn't improve by repetition. If anything, I've been surprised by how little regulation there sometimes is. Look at AirBnB or Uber or drones: Who would've though that you could (for a time) fly a model airplane in Heathrow's final approach corridor and only get a "we're looking into it and engaging in a dialog with all interested parties" as a reply?