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This supposed “insight” is on its way to become just another tired meme. If, somehow, Amazon profits from this settlement, why did they not just implement its t

This supposed “insight” is on its way to become just another tired meme. If, somehow, Amazon profits from this settlement, why did they not just implement its terms before? Or for other categories? There is nothing stopping them from requiring whatever lab tests they want from any seller they want, after all. Regulatory capture is a useful concept, but please don’t just parrot it for any case related to regulation. As seen here, it is now used most often as a cudgel against any sort of regulation, and that’s exactly what they wanted all along.

Mirioron 7y ago
So we should just ignore the long list of cases where it has happened, because This Time It Will Be Different?
- matt4077 7y ago
  No, use it when appropriate. Here, it isn’t, because: - this settlement applies to Amazon only, not any competitor. That doesn’t fit the usual mechanism of using regulation to shackle competition - regulatory capture also refers to a social mechanism, where regulators become friends with the industry because they spend so much time together etc. That doesn’t fit too well here, because a state attorney’s office is far more diversified than, say, the FAA. - the points in my initial comment, which you just ignored
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    I apologize, I was talking specifically about this: >This supposed “insight” is on its way to become just another tired meme. On the other hand, people were explicitly talking about regulation, which I took to mean as a wider-reaching thing than just this agreement Amazon made. In this specific case, Amazon is basically acting like the government for the sellers.
sokoloff 7y ago
It's not enough for Amazon to voluntarily adopt these measures, incurring costs only on themselves, but rather for the entire category/industry to be forced to implement these measures, incurring costs on everyone in the market. Even if the measures today are Amazon specific, the likely inexorable path is for this to become standard across the industry, which will eventually benefit those for whom the fixed cost portion can be spread across the largest amount of sales.

Mirioron 7y ago

So we should just ignore the long list of cases where it has happened, because This Time It Will Be Different?

matt4077 7y ago
No, use it when appropriate. Here, it isn’t, because: - this settlement applies to Amazon only, not any competitor. That doesn’t fit the usual mechanism of using regulation to shackle competition - regulatory capture also refers to a social mechanism, where regulators become friends with the industry because they spend so much time together etc. That doesn’t fit too well here, because a state attorney’s office is far more diversified than, say, the FAA. - the points in my initial comment, which you just ignored
- Mirioron 7y ago
  I apologize, I was talking specifically about this: >This supposed “insight” is on its way to become just another tired meme. On the other hand, people were explicitly talking about regulation, which I took to mean as a wider-reaching thing than just this agreement Amazon made. In this specific case, Amazon is basically acting like the government for the sellers.

sokoloff 7y ago

It's not enough for Amazon to voluntarily adopt these measures, incurring costs only on themselves, but rather for the entire category/industry to be forced to implement these measures, incurring costs on everyone in the market. Even if the measures today are Amazon specific, the likely inexorable path is for this to become standard across the industry, which will eventually benefit those for whom the fixed cost portion can be spread across the largest amount of sales.