You're painting with a pretty broad brush and ignoring any positive outcomes. Neither of us predicted that when Hollywood studios raised rates on Netflix it wo

You're painting with a pretty broad brush and ignoring any positive outcomes. Neither of us predicted that when Hollywood studios raised rates on Netflix it would trigger Netflix to become a very successful content producer on their own and that the chain of consequences would see an online bookseller nominated for Emmys and Golden Globes. Neither did either of us predict that Microsoft's Apple investment driven only by the fear of potentially more regulatory oversight after destroying their competition would trigger Apple's revolution of cellphone market and yield a company so successful it is sitting on billions in cash. Neither of us predicted those things because if we had we'd have put every penny into their respective stocks and neither of us would be wasting time on Hacker News. So (neither of us being millionaires aside) don't assume all outcomes from the law of unintended consequences are negative.