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This kind of exemplifies the classic startup tension between playing by the rules and ignoring the rules for the sake of moving fast, breaking things, and captu

This kind of exemplifies the classic startup tension between playing by the rules and ignoring the rules for the sake of moving fast, breaking things, and capturing market share. Paul Carr on Uber: " Laws don't exist merely to frustrate the business ambitions of coastal hipsters: They also exist to protect the more vulnerable members of society." https://pando.com/2012/10/24/travis-shrugged/ https://pando.com/2012/10/24/travis-shrugged/

umeshunni 8y ago
Or more accurately, they exist to preserve existing monopolies that have lobbied for regulatory barriers to market entry.
- rossdavidh 8y ago
  Unfortunately, they exist for both reasons, one of which we want and one of which we don't, and I have thus far not found a good way to disentangle the two.
- braythwayt 8y ago
  This is where we have to say, "It depends." Laws that throw up barriers to selling drugs without expensive testing and jumping through regulatory hoops are not there just to protect the profits of Big Pharma. But some laws definitely exist to perpetuate crony capitalism. See the rules that make it nearly impossible to start a new bank in Canada. And some laws exist to protect consumers from entrepreneurs that move fast and break the lives of people who trust them. See the history of banking before there were laws restricting banks. Note that these are the same laws, performing different purposes at different times. This touches on Chesterton's Fence: It might be a good idea to remove a lot of the regulation around banking in Canada, but not without understanding all of the problems that those laws were designed to fix, and making sure that whatever replaces those laws serves the same purpose. All-too-often, we hear "We no longer need that protection, circumstances have changed." This is often naïve, as the reason circumstances have changed is the presence of those outdated laws. Remove them, and we revert back to the circumstances that led us to create the laws in the first place.

umeshunni 8y ago

Or more accurately, they exist to preserve existing monopolies that have lobbied for regulatory barriers to market entry.

rossdavidh 8y ago
Unfortunately, they exist for both reasons, one of which we want and one of which we don't, and I have thus far not found a good way to disentangle the two.
braythwayt 8y ago
This is where we have to say, "It depends." Laws that throw up barriers to selling drugs without expensive testing and jumping through regulatory hoops are not there just to protect the profits of Big Pharma. But some laws definitely exist to perpetuate crony capitalism. See the rules that make it nearly impossible to start a new bank in Canada. And some laws exist to protect consumers from entrepreneurs that move fast and break the lives of people who trust them. See the history of banking before there were laws restricting banks. Note that these are the same laws, performing different purposes at different times. This touches on Chesterton's Fence: It might be a good idea to remove a lot of the regulation around banking in Canada, but not without understanding all of the problems that those laws were designed to fix, and making sure that whatever replaces those laws serves the same purpose. All-too-often, we hear "We no longer need that protection, circumstances have changed." This is often naïve, as the reason circumstances have changed is the presence of those outdated laws. Remove them, and we revert back to the circumstances that led us to create the laws in the first place.