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> Governments realize how disruptive tech can be to entrenched power structures. These regs will likely turn technology into yet another entrenched power struc

> Governments realize how disruptive tech can be to entrenched power structures. These regs will likely turn technology into yet another entrenched power structure. You won't be able to bootstrap a video hosting service as easily anymore if you need to provide a lot of moderation services, hire a legal team to keep you above board on all the requirements, etc. There might not be another facebook or google if you need facebook or google money to even get started.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
I see this argument every time tech industry regulation is discussed, and I feel it misses the fact that legal and regulation requirements are generally not that bad... they just don't scale well. The average website owner need not worry about SESTA, for example, because they can easily take individual action on an individual violation of the law as they discover it. But a giant corporation who knows that they likely have violations numbering in the five digits needs a compliance department to handle all of it. Startups will not be heavily restricted by regulation, because by the time their regulatory requirements are challenging, they'll just need to factor the additional costs into their scale-up plans. And on the contrary, the increased requirements for large players will add cost and challenge to the established players that will likely make room for new startups to take advantage of and work in under the margin.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  The concern is that complexity is a subsidy to the large and well connected. Regulatory capture is a particular example of that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture ...so if Google gets severely impacted by regulations, they have the money, connections, and power to get the rules (or at least their enforcement) altered. Small players just go out of business and we forget about them. See all the community banks and hospitals that have been getting punished in the last ten years. Big banks and big hospitals are figuring out all the new changes just fine. But the disparate outcomes are clear enough that I am surprised by arguments that regulations are good for little players and bad for small ones.
- the8472 9y ago
  > The average website owner need not worry about SESTA, The average, maybe. But consider a hobbyist-operated website used by millions. Proactive compliance is just not possible for everyone.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago

I see this argument every time tech industry regulation is discussed, and I feel it misses the fact that legal and regulation requirements are generally not that bad... they just don't scale well. The average website owner need not worry about SESTA, for example, because they can easily take individual action on an individual violation of the law as they discover it. But a giant corporation who knows that they likely have violations numbering in the five digits needs a compliance department to handle all of it. Startups will not be heavily restricted by regulation, because by the time their regulatory requirements are challenging, they'll just need to factor the additional costs into their scale-up plans. And on the contrary, the increased requirements for large players will add cost and challenge to the established players that will likely make room for new startups to take advantage of and work in under the margin.

humanrebar 9y ago
The concern is that complexity is a subsidy to the large and well connected. Regulatory capture is a particular example of that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture ...so if Google gets severely impacted by regulations, they have the money, connections, and power to get the rules (or at least their enforcement) altered. Small players just go out of business and we forget about them. See all the community banks and hospitals that have been getting punished in the last ten years. Big banks and big hospitals are figuring out all the new changes just fine. But the disparate outcomes are clear enough that I am surprised by arguments that regulations are good for little players and bad for small ones.
the8472 9y ago
> The average website owner need not worry about SESTA, The average, maybe. But consider a hobbyist-operated website used by millions. Proactive compliance is just not possible for everyone.