6 ms·

The more I look at things as I age, the more I see market based solutions as only benefiting the supplier and always hurting the consumer.

by hedvig 7y ago

dd36 7y ago
It’s not really even a market-based solution unless there are blockers competing for your business.
duxup 7y ago
I really wish there w as a party interested in free markets and fostering competition. Rather the GoP whose rhetoric talks about free markets, is really just all about picking winners themselves and legislating profits for their allies.
- joshAg 7y ago
  It's the same thing. In order to create any free market and foster competition, an entity has to decide and then enforce the rules for the market, which allows that entity to pick a winner by the rules it choose to write and then enforce. Plus, in mature markets, fostering competition is antithetical to maintaining the "freeness" of the market, because it requires punishing the "winners" in order to ensure competitors, by things like breaking up competitors that are able to leverage winning in one area to compete and then win in another area (ie antitrust/antimonopoly), invalidating patents/trade secrets/intellectual property/etc. when ever something is so dominant that without access to it no one can compete, and limiting how competitors can compete (eg preventing them from limiting how purchasers can use their products). And of course, every decision made for how to implement the kinds of issues outlined in the above paragraph is an opportunity to pick who wins, too.
  - duxup 7y ago
    I don't buy into the implication that any decision is picking winners the outcomes don't have to be that absolute.
    - joshAg 7y ago
      Every decision about what to enforce and when has a set of competitors that benefit from that decision and a set of competitors that are disadvantaged from that decision. And over time even a single, small benefit can be enough to guarantee a specific rational actor will win out over its competitors. Certainly not in all cases, but if the issue you have is that individual decisions aren't enough to pick a winner, no matter how large/important, then change the last paragraph to >>> And of course, every decision made for how to implement the kinds of issues outlined in the above paragraph is an opportunity to pick whom to give an advantage over their competitors, too. And this doesn't even begin to consider the issue that since the mechanism for making and enforcing the rules exists within the system of rules it creates, both fostering competition and enforcing a free market give opportunities for competitors to buy rules and/or enforcement of rules that benefit them at the expense of competitors, either directly or indirectly.
      - duxup 7y ago
        It's possible, but I'm still not sure I buy into the idea that a given decision that might result in someone failing is picking winners exactly. I can say in a given industry they can't pull some bait and switch... a company that relies on that tacit could go out of business, is that picking winners or regulating poor behavior? Like anything working to maintain some level of competitiveness would be like hitting a moving target, you'll have to change what you do, address barrier of entry issues one day, who knows what next.
        joshAg 7y ago
        In the extreme form of a free market (some would call that 'in a truly free market'), there is no such thing as regulating out bad behavior because, that is a limitation on actors' freedom within that market. As the view goes, even if everyone in the market agreed on what was bad and how to enforce the regulation, it would be wholely unnecessary to actually regulate such bad action, because all participants are rational actors who will naturally punish that bad behavior themselves by preferring a competitor over the bad actor. And yes, regulating poor behavior is absolutely picking winners/picking losers/picking specific companies to disadvantage/advantage, and not just because of issues with uneven enforcement. Determining which behaviors are disallowed and which behaviors will be policed by "natural market forces", especially when talking about modifying rules for a preexisting market, means picking winners/losers/who gets advantaged/disadvantaged. This is why encouraging/fostering competition is antithetical to making/maintaining a free market.
the_pwner224 7y ago
The market works pretty often when it is fair. The cell phone market is not, at least in the US. The providers maintain high costs of switching via contracts and phone leases and radio fragmentation (Verizon/Sprint/TMo/ATT use different frequencies, all but the highest end new phones generally only work on one or two) and carrier locking. If I could just put a different SIM in my phone anytime to switch carriers, there would be much more space for good carriers to exist - the cost of switching would just be spending an hour at the store porting your number.
- anthonybsd 7y ago
  Don't forget coverage issues. IPhones have been worldphones (i.e. works on every carrier) for the past 6+ years. Contracts and termination fees have been phased out for most people for 4 and all people for 2 years. Yet in my case despite paying full price for the latest IPhone I'm stuck with Verizon. Why? Because in one key location where I live it's the only carrier with data coverage.
  - gnicholas 7y ago
    Try xfinity mobile. They use Verizon's network and you pay $12/gb. You can byod or buy one through them.
    - the_pwner224 7y ago
      They are good for iPhones but not great otherwise. My parents switched to them 6 months ago. They don't allow you to bring another Android phone (yet), so I had to switch from my amazing Galaxy S5 to a S9 purchased through them. Aside from being a major hardware downgrade for my purposes, all their phones have locked bootloaders so you can't mess with them at all (aside from `pm uninstall`ing most bloatware). You also can't bring a non-iOS/Android phone to their network (aside from iPhones, all devices must be purchased through them). I plan on buying a Librem 5 when they are released; I will have to switch carriers and pay more every month, but freedom is worth the price. But for my parents, paying just $7/line in taxes and then 20-30 dollars per month for data is well worth it, even after factoring in the expensive upgrades from the old S8+/Note 7 to their S9+/Note 9 (and yes, the S8+/Note 7 would have worked perfectly fine on their network if not for their asinine restrictions).
koboll 7y ago
The house always wins.
wpietri 7y ago
Honestly, it's not clear to me that most "pro-market" advocates even understand markets. They work best when purchasers have many options, clear information, easy switching, and equal power to sellers. But at least in the US, most of the "pro-market" voices in practice seem to be in favor of oligopoly and the absolute right of businesses to exploit information, wealth, and power asymmetries. It makes me a bit bonkers, because well-designed markets can do an amazing job solving optimization problems.
- TallGuyShort 7y ago
  In the US, I think one problem is have too much mixing of public and private. We give the public sector a lot of decision making power relatively free of consequences, and leave massive profit opportunities for anyone in the private sector who manages to buy enough influence. Healthcare was far from a free market already before ObamaCare. But if we're going to regulate it as heavily as we do, I think we need to just step up and socialize it entirely.
  - maxhedrome 7y ago
    Nah, we just need to regulate prices, and disband insurance entirely. Trump forced all hospitals to be transparent about their prices, there’s no reason on this planet that the shit they’re peddling should cost the amount it does, and if the overhead is on the hospital then we need to regulate further up the ladder. The pharmaceutical companies and suppliers who are basically extorting everyone. Over regulation is a bad thing, but some regulation, especially with an industry as corrupt as American healthcare is good.
  - bogomipz 7y ago
    >"We give the public sector a lot of decision making power relatively free of consequences, and leave massive profit opportunities for anyone in the private sector who manages to buy enough influence." What would be an example of giving the public sector much decision making power "relatively free from consequence?" Would this be the FCC in this context? I ask because I'm genuinely interested in the point your making. Is there a relationship between this and and opportunistic private sector? Would this be the cell carriers in this context?
kodablah 7y ago
> I see market based solutions as only benefiting the supplier and always hurting the consumer The more I age, the more I recognize these things aren't absolute and recognize that the levels of benefit/harm are often nuanced to specific situations and wouldn't use such a broad brush strokes of "only" and "always" (as opposed to recognizing a pattern).
autokad 7y ago
we dont need to have a pro market or pro socialist conversation. we all agree robocalling needs to stop. Make it illegal, make it illegal for telecoms to allow it.

The more I look at things as I age, the more I see market based solutions as only benefiting the supplier and always hurting the consumer.

by hedvig 7y ago

The more I look at things as I age, the more I see market based solutions as only benefiting the supplier and always hurting the consumer.

dd36 7y ago

It’s not really even a market-based solution unless there are blockers competing for your business.

duxup 7y ago

I really wish there w as a party interested in free markets and fostering competition. Rather the GoP whose rhetoric talks about free markets, is really just all about picking winners themselves and legislating profits for their allies.

joshAg 7y ago
It's the same thing. In order to create any free market and foster competition, an entity has to decide and then enforce the rules for the market, which allows that entity to pick a winner by the rules it choose to write and then enforce. Plus, in mature markets, fostering competition is antithetical to maintaining the "freeness" of the market, because it requires punishing the "winners" in order to ensure competitors, by things like breaking up competitors that are able to leverage winning in one area to compete and then win in another area (ie antitrust/antimonopoly), invalidating patents/trade secrets/intellectual property/etc. when ever something is so dominant that without access to it no one can compete, and limiting how competitors can compete (eg preventing them from limiting how purchasers can use their products). And of course, every decision made for how to implement the kinds of issues outlined in the above paragraph is an opportunity to pick who wins, too.
- duxup 7y ago
  I don't buy into the implication that any decision is picking winners the outcomes don't have to be that absolute.
  - joshAg 7y ago
    Every decision about what to enforce and when has a set of competitors that benefit from that decision and a set of competitors that are disadvantaged from that decision. And over time even a single, small benefit can be enough to guarantee a specific rational actor will win out over its competitors. Certainly not in all cases, but if the issue you have is that individual decisions aren't enough to pick a winner, no matter how large/important, then change the last paragraph to >>> And of course, every decision made for how to implement the kinds of issues outlined in the above paragraph is an opportunity to pick whom to give an advantage over their competitors, too. And this doesn't even begin to consider the issue that since the mechanism for making and enforcing the rules exists within the system of rules it creates, both fostering competition and enforcing a free market give opportunities for competitors to buy rules and/or enforcement of rules that benefit them at the expense of competitors, either directly or indirectly.
    - duxup 7y ago
      It's possible, but I'm still not sure I buy into the idea that a given decision that might result in someone failing is picking winners exactly. I can say in a given industry they can't pull some bait and switch... a company that relies on that tacit could go out of business, is that picking winners or regulating poor behavior? Like anything working to maintain some level of competitiveness would be like hitting a moving target, you'll have to change what you do, address barrier of entry issues one day, who knows what next.
      - joshAg 7y ago
        In the extreme form of a free market (some would call that 'in a truly free market'), there is no such thing as regulating out bad behavior because, that is a limitation on actors' freedom within that market. As the view goes, even if everyone in the market agreed on what was bad and how to enforce the regulation, it would be wholely unnecessary to actually regulate such bad action, because all participants are rational actors who will naturally punish that bad behavior themselves by preferring a competitor over the bad actor. And yes, regulating poor behavior is absolutely picking winners/picking losers/picking specific companies to disadvantage/advantage, and not just because of issues with uneven enforcement. Determining which behaviors are disallowed and which behaviors will be policed by "natural market forces", especially when talking about modifying rules for a preexisting market, means picking winners/losers/who gets advantaged/disadvantaged. This is why encouraging/fostering competition is antithetical to making/maintaining a free market.

the_pwner224 7y ago

The market works pretty often when it is fair. The cell phone market is not, at least in the US. The providers maintain high costs of switching via contracts and phone leases and radio fragmentation (Verizon/Sprint/TMo/ATT use different frequencies, all but the highest end new phones generally only work on one or two) and carrier locking. If I could just put a different SIM in my phone anytime to switch carriers, there would be much more space for good carriers to exist - the cost of switching would just be spending an hour at the store porting your number.

anthonybsd 7y ago
Don't forget coverage issues. IPhones have been worldphones (i.e. works on every carrier) for the past 6+ years. Contracts and termination fees have been phased out for most people for 4 and all people for 2 years. Yet in my case despite paying full price for the latest IPhone I'm stuck with Verizon. Why? Because in one key location where I live it's the only carrier with data coverage.
- gnicholas 7y ago
  Try xfinity mobile. They use Verizon's network and you pay $12/gb. You can byod or buy one through them.
  - the_pwner224 7y ago
    They are good for iPhones but not great otherwise. My parents switched to them 6 months ago. They don't allow you to bring another Android phone (yet), so I had to switch from my amazing Galaxy S5 to a S9 purchased through them. Aside from being a major hardware downgrade for my purposes, all their phones have locked bootloaders so you can't mess with them at all (aside from `pm uninstall`ing most bloatware). You also can't bring a non-iOS/Android phone to their network (aside from iPhones, all devices must be purchased through them). I plan on buying a Librem 5 when they are released; I will have to switch carriers and pay more every month, but freedom is worth the price. But for my parents, paying just $7/line in taxes and then 20-30 dollars per month for data is well worth it, even after factoring in the expensive upgrades from the old S8+/Note 7 to their S9+/Note 9 (and yes, the S8+/Note 7 would have worked perfectly fine on their network if not for their asinine restrictions).

koboll 7y ago

The house always wins.

wpietri 7y ago

Honestly, it's not clear to me that most "pro-market" advocates even understand markets. They work best when purchasers have many options, clear information, easy switching, and equal power to sellers. But at least in the US, most of the "pro-market" voices in practice seem to be in favor of oligopoly and the absolute right of businesses to exploit information, wealth, and power asymmetries. It makes me a bit bonkers, because well-designed markets can do an amazing job solving optimization problems.

TallGuyShort 7y ago
In the US, I think one problem is have too much mixing of public and private. We give the public sector a lot of decision making power relatively free of consequences, and leave massive profit opportunities for anyone in the private sector who manages to buy enough influence. Healthcare was far from a free market already before ObamaCare. But if we're going to regulate it as heavily as we do, I think we need to just step up and socialize it entirely.
- maxhedrome 7y ago
  Nah, we just need to regulate prices, and disband insurance entirely. Trump forced all hospitals to be transparent about their prices, there’s no reason on this planet that the shit they’re peddling should cost the amount it does, and if the overhead is on the hospital then we need to regulate further up the ladder. The pharmaceutical companies and suppliers who are basically extorting everyone. Over regulation is a bad thing, but some regulation, especially with an industry as corrupt as American healthcare is good.
- bogomipz 7y ago
  >"We give the public sector a lot of decision making power relatively free of consequences, and leave massive profit opportunities for anyone in the private sector who manages to buy enough influence." What would be an example of giving the public sector much decision making power "relatively free from consequence?" Would this be the FCC in this context? I ask because I'm genuinely interested in the point your making. Is there a relationship between this and and opportunistic private sector? Would this be the cell carriers in this context?

kodablah 7y ago

> I see market based solutions as only benefiting the supplier and always hurting the consumer The more I age, the more I recognize these things aren't absolute and recognize that the levels of benefit/harm are often nuanced to specific situations and wouldn't use such a broad brush strokes of "only" and "always" (as opposed to recognizing a pattern).

autokad 7y ago

we dont need to have a pro market or pro socialist conversation. we all agree robocalling needs to stop. Make it illegal, make it illegal for telecoms to allow it.