9 ms·

This is more true than most people realize. The web was inherently hard to regulate from the beginning because a given page could pull in assets from many diffe

This is more true than most people realize. The web was inherently hard to regulate from the beginning because a given page could pull in assets from many different states and countries. So regulators basically gave up. It's quite possible that with a different set of circumstances, the problems of spam, porn, black hat SEO, etc. would have triggered a regulatory response that would likely have massively slowed down the growth of the internet. Imagine FDA-style, mandatory, centralized, single point of failure, pre-market review of every website for "safety" and "efficacy". That's insane to contemplate, but a few high profile "Myspace child predator" scare stories at the beginning of the internet could very well have made it happen. Even the very concept of pre-market review is strange to the internet. Here it's accepted that you launch and figure things out iteratively. Part of the reason is that we're more tolerant of visible crashes in computers than other fields. However, systematic studies (e.g. http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/12/device-lag-at-the-fda.html http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/12...) have shown that centralized pre-market review even in areas like healthcare costs more lives and money than it claims to save. [Not to digress too much, but among other things, the lack of an opt-out means the FDA has no incentive to remain competent. There are thousands of schools that certify medical doctors, but only one certification agency for medical devices. The relative lack of innovation in healthcare vs. IT is in nontrivial part due to this stifling regulation; see for example what happens when internet culture collides with FDA culture here: http://mobihealthnews.com/6932/interview-the-iphone-medical-app-denied-510k/ http://mobihealthnews.com/6932/interview-the-iphone-medical-...]

hexis 16y ago
"There are thousands of schools that certify medical doctors, but only one certification agency for medical devices." Somewhat amazingly, there are only 133 schools in the united states that award MDs - https://www.aamc.org/about/medicalschools/ https://www.aamc.org/about/medicalschools/
- maxharris 16y ago
  The fact that this is so tightly regulated is directly responsible for the well-known shortage of physicians (especially primary care) in the US. Here's some data about how the supply of doctors is constrained by law: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/S8p3XotZRpI/AAAAAAAANQ4/9Bn63-6lmgs/s1600/medschool.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/S8p3XotZRpI/AAAAAAAANQ... (http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/04/medical-school-grads-have-been-flat.html http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/04/medical-school-grads-hav...) For the last 30 years, only 16,000 new doctors are let through each year, and this is very carefully regulated to keep guild members rich. There's nothing wrong with people getting rich, so long as they don't use the government to secure and maintain their monopoly. This is why state licensing should be abolished. Unfortunately, it's been this way since the Middle Ages. Does it have to be this way? Not if you decide that people should be free to choose for themselves which expert they should seek medical help from, and what qualifications they require. If you own your own body (and I say you do), this is your right to decide.
  - nickpinkston 16y ago
    Certainly - I don't understand how the AMA gets to enforce a monopoly cartel without the FTC breaking them up... There should also not be one level of doctor. An MD does little to say if a doctor could perform brain surgery - that's already based on performance metrics (specialty, years working, etc,). You're telling me nurses can't diagnose most diseases a general physician does? The Nurse Prac movement is great - I wonder how that's been regulated / affecting pay, service costs, etc.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - jbooth 16y ago
    There's probably a middle ground between the current exclusionary system and some guy with a mail-ordered Hard Knocks University degree on his wall being allowed to practice medicine on people.
    - maxharris 16y ago
      The solution is freedom. Freedom means freedom from fraud. So if the guy with a mail-ordered degree lies to someone and says he got a degree from Harvard, causing that person to get "treated" when they would otherwise have gone elsewhere, that's when the government should intervene. Saving people from themselves is foolhardy, and such efforts are invariably used as tools of repression.
- teej 16y ago
  > Somewhat amazingly, there are only 133 schools in the united states that award MDs As well as 26 schools that award DOs, a degree equivalent to MD in all 50 states - http://www.aacom.org/people/colleges/pages/default.aspx http://www.aacom.org/people/colleges/pages/default.aspx
- ramanujan 16y ago
  I was also thinking of foreign medical schools; graduates of those schools make up a considerable portion of doctors and dentists in the US. But granting that it's more accurate to say "hundreds" rather than "thousands", the substantive point is that total centralization is not necessary to ensure quality of medical care.
asynchronous13 16y ago
I certainly agree that lack of regulation has helped in the growth of the web and internet. However, I would argue that open standards were even more critical. Email, DNS, TCP/IP, HTML -- Having a common base on which to build new technologies allowed a huge amount of innovation to occur very rapidly. Imagine the difference if many companies had competing formats for the base technologies. It would be like when railroad companies used different gauges for train tracks. Interoperability would have been a nightmare. Or worse, if a single company invented the tech and demanded royalties -- would the web be what it is if everyone had to pay royalties to use HTML? I believe that the innovations would have occurred eventually in this scenario, it just would have taken a lot longer.
- api 16y ago
  You're right, but this is another case of the same problem. If one bureaucracy-- government or corporate-- controls it, then it stagnates. Big single choke point equals bad.
esoteriq 16y ago
Absolutely. Regulation can kill an emerging industry in its infancy. But, now I wonder - is that assumption still true? The internet has been mainstream (and I use the word loosely) for the last 10 years or so. Hell, I'm in my mid-20s and I remember using Internet when I was eight (hi Prodigy...haven't seen you around in a while!). I was wondering if the internet has become so widespread that some regulation (but very little, since it is indeed very difficult to regulate). For example, last October, Congress passed the 21st Centry Video Accessibility Act, which among other things, requires pass-through captioning for videos on the internet (http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db1207/DOC-303071A1.pdf http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db1207...). I'm undecided on the matter. More than any other industries, internet-based companies seem to respond to privacy and security concerns. Of course, the issue is that there are usually big screw-ups inspire such responses, such as leaking personal data by mistake. Well, I do think some regulation is inevitable though - considering how important the internet is becoming. Once something becomes crucial to a segment of America's economy, the government wants to step in and protect people's interests (or at least what they perceive to be people's interests). I would prefer such regulation be limited to requiring open standards/access and net neutrality.

hexis 16y ago

"There are thousands of schools that certify medical doctors, but only one certification agency for medical devices." Somewhat amazingly, there are only 133 schools in the united states that award MDs - https://www.aamc.org/about/medicalschools/ https://www.aamc.org/about/medicalschools/

maxharris 16y ago
The fact that this is so tightly regulated is directly responsible for the well-known shortage of physicians (especially primary care) in the US. Here's some data about how the supply of doctors is constrained by law: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/S8p3XotZRpI/AAAAAAAANQ4/9Bn63-6lmgs/s1600/medschool.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/S8p3XotZRpI/AAAAAAAANQ... (http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/04/medical-school-grads-have-been-flat.html http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/04/medical-school-grads-hav...) For the last 30 years, only 16,000 new doctors are let through each year, and this is very carefully regulated to keep guild members rich. There's nothing wrong with people getting rich, so long as they don't use the government to secure and maintain their monopoly. This is why state licensing should be abolished. Unfortunately, it's been this way since the Middle Ages. Does it have to be this way? Not if you decide that people should be free to choose for themselves which expert they should seek medical help from, and what qualifications they require. If you own your own body (and I say you do), this is your right to decide.
- nickpinkston 16y ago
  Certainly - I don't understand how the AMA gets to enforce a monopoly cartel without the FTC breaking them up... There should also not be one level of doctor. An MD does little to say if a doctor could perform brain surgery - that's already based on performance metrics (specialty, years working, etc,). You're telling me nurses can't diagnose most diseases a general physician does? The Nurse Prac movement is great - I wonder how that's been regulated / affecting pay, service costs, etc.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- jbooth 16y ago
  There's probably a middle ground between the current exclusionary system and some guy with a mail-ordered Hard Knocks University degree on his wall being allowed to practice medicine on people.
  - maxharris 16y ago
    The solution is freedom. Freedom means freedom from fraud. So if the guy with a mail-ordered degree lies to someone and says he got a degree from Harvard, causing that person to get "treated" when they would otherwise have gone elsewhere, that's when the government should intervene. Saving people from themselves is foolhardy, and such efforts are invariably used as tools of repression.
teej 16y ago
> Somewhat amazingly, there are only 133 schools in the united states that award MDs As well as 26 schools that award DOs, a degree equivalent to MD in all 50 states - http://www.aacom.org/people/colleges/pages/default.aspx http://www.aacom.org/people/colleges/pages/default.aspx
ramanujan 16y ago
I was also thinking of foreign medical schools; graduates of those schools make up a considerable portion of doctors and dentists in the US. But granting that it's more accurate to say "hundreds" rather than "thousands", the substantive point is that total centralization is not necessary to ensure quality of medical care.

asynchronous13 16y ago

I certainly agree that lack of regulation has helped in the growth of the web and internet. However, I would argue that open standards were even more critical. Email, DNS, TCP/IP, HTML -- Having a common base on which to build new technologies allowed a huge amount of innovation to occur very rapidly. Imagine the difference if many companies had competing formats for the base technologies. It would be like when railroad companies used different gauges for train tracks. Interoperability would have been a nightmare. Or worse, if a single company invented the tech and demanded royalties -- would the web be what it is if everyone had to pay royalties to use HTML? I believe that the innovations would have occurred eventually in this scenario, it just would have taken a lot longer.

api 16y ago
You're right, but this is another case of the same problem. If one bureaucracy-- government or corporate-- controls it, then it stagnates. Big single choke point equals bad.

esoteriq 16y ago

Absolutely. Regulation can kill an emerging industry in its infancy. But, now I wonder - is that assumption still true? The internet has been mainstream (and I use the word loosely) for the last 10 years or so. Hell, I'm in my mid-20s and I remember using Internet when I was eight (hi Prodigy...haven't seen you around in a while!). I was wondering if the internet has become so widespread that some regulation (but very little, since it is indeed very difficult to regulate). For example, last October, Congress passed the 21st Centry Video Accessibility Act, which among other things, requires pass-through captioning for videos on the internet (http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db1207/DOC-303071A1.pdf http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db1207...). I'm undecided on the matter. More than any other industries, internet-based companies seem to respond to privacy and security concerns. Of course, the issue is that there are usually big screw-ups inspire such responses, such as leaking personal data by mistake. Well, I do think some regulation is inevitable though - considering how important the internet is becoming. Once something becomes crucial to a segment of America's economy, the government wants to step in and protect people's interests (or at least what they perceive to be people's interests). I would prefer such regulation be limited to requiring open standards/access and net neutrality.