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This is like saying doctors should push cheap drugs that may or may not make your testicles explode because customers don't demand non-testicle exploding drugs.

This is like saying doctors should push cheap drugs that may or may not make your testicles explode because customers don't demand non-testicle exploding drugs. We trust doctors to take into account all the nuances of medicine that laymen have never even heard of, and give us good advice. Because not everyone can be an expert on everything. Its the same with software. We can't expect everyone to be an expert.. its up to our industry to act responsibly. Sure its "market failure" in so far as duping uninformed people is a good way to make a quick buck, but the deeper issue is moral failure / failure to take responsibility.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
rossdavidh 8y ago
...and we don't just rely on drug makers, for example, to be moral and take responsibility. We have government agencies that _require_ strict testing of their safety and effectiveness. If we left it up to the market, we would get inferior results. The problem is, we have no FDA equivalent for tech security.
- minikites 8y ago
  I agree, this is a core reason we have a government.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  We have FTC/FCC and EU/GDPR
- acct1771 8y ago
  That's a great point made with a pretty suspect example. FDA very subject to regulatory capture.
  - alex_anglin 8y ago
    Regulatory capture is certainly an issue, but it doesn't mean that the FDA isn't better than not having a regulatory regime at all.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    The cost of the FDA is that the process is slower. The benefit is that medicine is effective and measurably safe. It’s obviously necessary, and the supplement industry shows why.
  - rossdavidh 8y ago
    Regulatory capture is certainly an important problem, but the pre-FDA record suggests strongly that the FDA we have is much better than not having one. But I would certainly not suggest that there is not a real problem with regulatory capture, just that the current situation in tech security (no FDA equivalent) is worse.
furi 8y ago
Customers don't demand non-testicle exploding drugs because that's already the standard in the same way that customers don't demand software that doesn't wipe their disks at random intervals, because software already doesn't (careless usage of dd notwithstanding). If drugs started exploding testicles you can bet customers would start demanding they didn't (male customers at least). Just look at the Thalidomide incident, I've seen it in the news within the last decade and it happened nearly 60 years ago at this point.
- luma 8y ago
  I think consumers are a little more savvy than people in this thread are giving them credit for. Sure, nobody want exploding gonads, but most folks couldn't give a whit if some overseas teenager manages to sneak a look at the contents of their driveway. People just want a cheap camera to catch their neighbors letting the dog poop in their lawn, and if it means becoming part of a botnot, who cares. The market has spoken, cheap wins over secure time after time. The consumers know, and they don't care, because to them the stakes are just not that high. Their genitals will be fine, and who wouldn't mind an extra set of eyes on the front yard.
  - smolder 8y ago
    Consumers are not savvy as a group. There is always an "eternal september", new suckers born every minute, that can be abused. Beyond that, there are plenty of ways that you can maintain consumer trust while abusing it at the same time. You can sell them products that hurt them in ways they don't understand, and you can control the media surrounding your product enough to ensure that they don't understand. Advertising has a basic purpose of making people aware of products, but it also serves to mislead them on the value of things, overstating the benefits and understating the costs. This idea that people understand the total consequence of what they do with their money is so simplistic that it's stupid. Markets don't "speak" from a vaccuum, they demand what their constituents are convinced is valuable, regardless of the accuracy of valuation. Lies sell garbage all the time and the consumer isn't to blame for wanting it, the professional, skilled, psychology-wielding liars who sold them on it are. Hypothetical example: pay for a bunk study that concludes eating apples prevents hair loss, benefit for decades, with negligible repercussions to your business when the lie is uncovered. I'd be skeptical if you claim you can't identify several real examples yourself.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kbenson 8y ago
What you are describing is an example of of customers demanding non-testicle exploding drugs as why we don't have them. When a drug causes problems, customers often end up suing the manufacturer/developer of said drug. If doctors prescribe said drugs after it becomes common knowledge that it could cause a problem, they also might be sued for malpractice. Are people sing IoT companies for poor security practices? If so, are they winning? Without that, what inventive is there for those companies to do anything more than they already are? It's not like there's actually any level of brand awareness for the vast majority of these devices, so it's easy enough to just ignore complaints and rely on the fact that nobody pays attention to your track record when it comes to this market.
- igor47 8y ago
  nobody's ever sued me for leaving flaming bags of dog poop on your front porch before ringing your doorbell and making a getaway by segway while cackling madly. yet, every day, i resist the overriding temptation to do exactly that. why? well, gosh darn it, because it's the right thing to do! i think the drive to reduce every bit of human behavior to economic incentives backed by a government force structure is ultimately counterproductive. would you agree?
  - komali2 8y ago
    I agree, but in this system we indoctrinate our children to operate on profit motives. It took me many decades to understand that money is, ironically, worthless.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    If you’re trying to explain the behaviour of unusually, upstanding moral people sure. If you’re trying to deal with anything larger than a small and highly committed group no. > there are three classes of humans 1) those who will throw the rock at you with the mob 2) those who will not throw the rock and avert their eyes 3) those who will speak out against throwing the rocks > the ratio is probably 90:9:1
    - 8y ago
k3lsi3r 8y ago
if you consider how doctors are happy to prescribe drugs that are not ideal (understatement) for their patients' health for money from pharmaceutical companies, your argument falls apart. consider the opioid epidemic
marcus_holmes 8y ago
Doctors would totally push cheap testicle-exploding drugs on their patients if there wasn't extensive regulation preventing them from doing that. They do push life-explodingly addictive and harmful painkillers on their patients, despite knowing the harm it does, because regulations don't prevent them from doing that. What would be the consequences of an FDA for IoT? Huge price increases, sudden workability of patents as a means of protection, but more security and better products?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- coatmatter 8y ago
  > Doctors would totally push cheap testicle-exploding drugs on their patients if there wasn't extensive regulation preventing them from doing that. And who would have had some of the most input into said extensive regulation?
intended 8y ago
Doctors have done that - and pharma firms would and have done worse. The reason they dont is because there are regulations and trials which have to be passed before you can go forward. And those are things which people on HN regularly criticize - pointing out that life saving drugs would be on the market faster if these regulations were not so "onerous".
megamindbrian2 8y ago
There aren't enough doctors in medicine to go around. There probably aren't enough doctors (as in PhD) in all the other technology industries supporting medicine.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

rossdavidh 8y ago

...and we don't just rely on drug makers, for example, to be moral and take responsibility. We have government agencies that _require_ strict testing of their safety and effectiveness. If we left it up to the market, we would get inferior results. The problem is, we have no FDA equivalent for tech security.

minikites 8y ago
I agree, this is a core reason we have a government.
fjsolwmv 8y ago
We have FTC/FCC and EU/GDPR
acct1771 8y ago
That's a great point made with a pretty suspect example. FDA very subject to regulatory capture.
- alex_anglin 8y ago
  Regulatory capture is certainly an issue, but it doesn't mean that the FDA isn't better than not having a regulatory regime at all.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  The cost of the FDA is that the process is slower. The benefit is that medicine is effective and measurably safe. It’s obviously necessary, and the supplement industry shows why.
- rossdavidh 8y ago
  Regulatory capture is certainly an important problem, but the pre-FDA record suggests strongly that the FDA we have is much better than not having one. But I would certainly not suggest that there is not a real problem with regulatory capture, just that the current situation in tech security (no FDA equivalent) is worse.

furi 8y ago

Customers don't demand non-testicle exploding drugs because that's already the standard in the same way that customers don't demand software that doesn't wipe their disks at random intervals, because software already doesn't (careless usage of dd notwithstanding). If drugs started exploding testicles you can bet customers would start demanding they didn't (male customers at least). Just look at the Thalidomide incident, I've seen it in the news within the last decade and it happened nearly 60 years ago at this point.

luma 8y ago
I think consumers are a little more savvy than people in this thread are giving them credit for. Sure, nobody want exploding gonads, but most folks couldn't give a whit if some overseas teenager manages to sneak a look at the contents of their driveway. People just want a cheap camera to catch their neighbors letting the dog poop in their lawn, and if it means becoming part of a botnot, who cares. The market has spoken, cheap wins over secure time after time. The consumers know, and they don't care, because to them the stakes are just not that high. Their genitals will be fine, and who wouldn't mind an extra set of eyes on the front yard.
- smolder 8y ago
  Consumers are not savvy as a group. There is always an "eternal september", new suckers born every minute, that can be abused. Beyond that, there are plenty of ways that you can maintain consumer trust while abusing it at the same time. You can sell them products that hurt them in ways they don't understand, and you can control the media surrounding your product enough to ensure that they don't understand. Advertising has a basic purpose of making people aware of products, but it also serves to mislead them on the value of things, overstating the benefits and understating the costs. This idea that people understand the total consequence of what they do with their money is so simplistic that it's stupid. Markets don't "speak" from a vaccuum, they demand what their constituents are convinced is valuable, regardless of the accuracy of valuation. Lies sell garbage all the time and the consumer isn't to blame for wanting it, the professional, skilled, psychology-wielding liars who sold them on it are. Hypothetical example: pay for a bunk study that concludes eating apples prevents hair loss, benefit for decades, with negligible repercussions to your business when the lie is uncovered. I'd be skeptical if you claim you can't identify several real examples yourself.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

kbenson 8y ago

What you are describing is an example of of customers demanding non-testicle exploding drugs as why we don't have them. When a drug causes problems, customers often end up suing the manufacturer/developer of said drug. If doctors prescribe said drugs after it becomes common knowledge that it could cause a problem, they also might be sued for malpractice. Are people sing IoT companies for poor security practices? If so, are they winning? Without that, what inventive is there for those companies to do anything more than they already are? It's not like there's actually any level of brand awareness for the vast majority of these devices, so it's easy enough to just ignore complaints and rely on the fact that nobody pays attention to your track record when it comes to this market.

igor47 8y ago
nobody's ever sued me for leaving flaming bags of dog poop on your front porch before ringing your doorbell and making a getaway by segway while cackling madly. yet, every day, i resist the overriding temptation to do exactly that. why? well, gosh darn it, because it's the right thing to do! i think the drive to reduce every bit of human behavior to economic incentives backed by a government force structure is ultimately counterproductive. would you agree?
- komali2 8y ago
  I agree, but in this system we indoctrinate our children to operate on profit motives. It took me many decades to understand that money is, ironically, worthless.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  If you’re trying to explain the behaviour of unusually, upstanding moral people sure. If you’re trying to deal with anything larger than a small and highly committed group no. > there are three classes of humans 1) those who will throw the rock at you with the mob 2) those who will not throw the rock and avert their eyes 3) those who will speak out against throwing the rocks > the ratio is probably 90:9:1
  - 8y ago

k3lsi3r 8y ago

if you consider how doctors are happy to prescribe drugs that are not ideal (understatement) for their patients' health for money from pharmaceutical companies, your argument falls apart. consider the opioid epidemic

marcus_holmes 8y ago

Doctors would totally push cheap testicle-exploding drugs on their patients if there wasn't extensive regulation preventing them from doing that. They do push life-explodingly addictive and harmful painkillers on their patients, despite knowing the harm it does, because regulations don't prevent them from doing that. What would be the consequences of an FDA for IoT? Huge price increases, sudden workability of patents as a means of protection, but more security and better products?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
coatmatter 8y ago
> Doctors would totally push cheap testicle-exploding drugs on their patients if there wasn't extensive regulation preventing them from doing that. And who would have had some of the most input into said extensive regulation?

intended 8y ago

Doctors have done that - and pharma firms would and have done worse. The reason they dont is because there are regulations and trials which have to be passed before you can go forward. And those are things which people on HN regularly criticize - pointing out that life saving drugs would be on the market faster if these regulations were not so "onerous".

megamindbrian2 8y ago

There aren't enough doctors in medicine to go around. There probably aren't enough doctors (as in PhD) in all the other technology industries supporting medicine.