3 ms·

Yes, and it's quite obvious that businesses are rife with negative consequences, especially in the way they create externalities. > we all need to be prepared

Yes, and it's quite obvious that businesses are rife with negative consequences, especially in the way they create externalities. > we all need to be prepared to accept tradeoffs Do we "need" to be? This is why we have laws. We don't "need" to accept that murder will happen, for example. We can legislate that no, you can't just kill someone because you feel like it. Similarly no, you can't just not answer the phone because you just don't feel like it.

pdonis 5y ago
> Do we "need" to be? In many cases, yes. Not everything in the society you live in is going to be arranged the way you want. That's just a fact of life. > you can't just kill someone because you feel like it. Similarly no, you can't just not answer the phone because you just don't feel like it. These cases are not at all equivalent. You don't have a right to have everyone answer your phone calls the way you have a right to your life.
- ironmagma 5y ago
  It was an existence proof. I'm not saying they're equivalent, I'm saying sometimes we don't need to accept tradeoffs. The fact we don't have this right is a problem, and that is the point here: we should. There are many other rights Americans enjoy, and the wealth that companies enjoy here is more than enough to balance out one requirement, especially in the light that the requirement would benefit most businesses anyway. To draw another analogy, think of anti-monopoly laws. To the standard businessman, they "suck." But on the macro level, for most citizens, and even for most businesses, they are good.
  - pdonis 5y ago
    > I'm saying sometimes we don't need to accept tradeoffs. Sometimes, sure. But we're not discussing "sometimes" in the abstract. We're discussing a particular kind of situation. > The fact we don't have this right is a problem The fact that we don't have what right? The right to demand support from businesses that say up front that they don't provide it? No, I don't agree that we should have that right. As others have said, all that will do is make it much harder to start a business. > There are many other rights Americans enjoy Not everything that is claimed to be a "right" in today's American society actually is. The actual rights embodied in our Constitution and laws are not rights to demand that other people do things for you. They are rights to have other people, and the government, not do things to you that deprive you of your liberty, like jail you for speaking your mind or search your house without a warrant and probable cause or force you to testify against yourself. To compare those things to a business not providing you with the support you think you're entitled to, when you haven't paid for it and the business explicitly says it doesn't provide it, and say the same kind of "right" is involved in that case, is ridiculous. If you really think it's a problem that businesses offer products and services but don't provide the support you want, here's my suggestion to you: start your own business that does the things you complain that other businesses don't do. I think you will find it a very enlightening experience. > To draw another analogy, think of anti-monopoly laws...on the macro level, for most citizens, and even for most businesses, they are good. No, they're not, they're terrible. The main effect of their application has been to make products and services more expensive for consumers, not less. The "monopolies" that were driven out of business or forced to break up under such laws (e.g., Standard Oil or Alcoa Aluminum) got their huge market share by providing their products more cheaply and in greater quantities than any of their competitors. The anti-trust suits against them were not instigated by consumers who weren't being well served (there weren't any); they were instigated by the competitors, who found it much easier to get the government to invoke laws to their benefit (and to the detriment of their customers) than to actually compete.
    - ironmagma 5y ago
      > As others have said, all that will do is make it much harder to start a business. And as I said, this rule would only apply to companies of a certain size and revenue. > The actual rights embodied in our Constitution and laws are not rights to demand that other people do things for you Not true. First amendment guaranteeing right to exercise your religious choice is useless if nobody is out there enforcing that right, protecting it for you. Its very existence demands someone protect it for you. If they don't... well, you don't have that right anymore. The fifth amendment guarantees your ability to use a grand jury. What use is that if the jury simply refuses to serve you? Answer: They're not allowed to not serve you, thus they are forced to do something for you. Monopolies are bad for consumers because no one can compete with them effectively. To offer "just compete with them" as a solution is just ignorant to this concept. With scale comes efficiency, and when you are efficient enough, you don't need to compete anymore. > start your own business that does the things you complain that other businesses don't do. I think you will find it a very enlightening experience. It wouldn't be Hacker News without an assumptive, sneering remark like this. Consider that this is a website full of startup entrepreneurs and that maybe you can't safely make this assumption after all.
      - pdonis 5y ago
        > Not true. Your reasoning is specious. The government is only obligated to protect particular rights under the Constitution, not any "right" you dream up. A grand jury is not serving you; it's serving the government, in the course of the government protecting your rights. If we want the government to protect our rights, of course we have a duty to do things like serve on grand juries. But that is not a service to the individual defendants; it's a service to us as a society, through the government. > Monopolies are bad for consumers because no one can compete with them effectively. If no one can compete with them because no one can offer the same products and services at an equally low price and in equally large quantities, that's not bad for consumers. That's good. What's bad is when the government steps in at the behest of the failed competitors to break up the monopolies, raising prices, lowering supply, and making things worse for consumers, as in the historical examples I gave. If no one can compete with them effectively because they've bought special privileges from the government (which is often the case--for example, that's how railroad barons in the US in the late 19th century avoided competition, by getting the government to give them exclusive rights over particular routes), that's a reason to have less government regulation, not more. If no one can compete with them effectively because no one is even trying, then someone should try. For example, if having guaranteed human phone support is something valuable to customers, then customers will pay for it. So there's an obvious business opportunity (and all the startup entrepreneurs you refer to on this site should be champing at the bit to take it). If it's not valuable enough to customers for them to pay for it, then why should the law step in and require it?

pdonis 5y ago

> Do we "need" to be? In many cases, yes. Not everything in the society you live in is going to be arranged the way you want. That's just a fact of life. > you can't just kill someone because you feel like it. Similarly no, you can't just not answer the phone because you just don't feel like it. These cases are not at all equivalent. You don't have a right to have everyone answer your phone calls the way you have a right to your life.

ironmagma 5y ago
It was an existence proof. I'm not saying they're equivalent, I'm saying sometimes we don't need to accept tradeoffs. The fact we don't have this right is a problem, and that is the point here: we should. There are many other rights Americans enjoy, and the wealth that companies enjoy here is more than enough to balance out one requirement, especially in the light that the requirement would benefit most businesses anyway. To draw another analogy, think of anti-monopoly laws. To the standard businessman, they "suck." But on the macro level, for most citizens, and even for most businesses, they are good.
- pdonis 5y ago
  > I'm saying sometimes we don't need to accept tradeoffs. Sometimes, sure. But we're not discussing "sometimes" in the abstract. We're discussing a particular kind of situation. > The fact we don't have this right is a problem The fact that we don't have what right? The right to demand support from businesses that say up front that they don't provide it? No, I don't agree that we should have that right. As others have said, all that will do is make it much harder to start a business. > There are many other rights Americans enjoy Not everything that is claimed to be a "right" in today's American society actually is. The actual rights embodied in our Constitution and laws are not rights to demand that other people do things for you. They are rights to have other people, and the government, not do things to you that deprive you of your liberty, like jail you for speaking your mind or search your house without a warrant and probable cause or force you to testify against yourself. To compare those things to a business not providing you with the support you think you're entitled to, when you haven't paid for it and the business explicitly says it doesn't provide it, and say the same kind of "right" is involved in that case, is ridiculous. If you really think it's a problem that businesses offer products and services but don't provide the support you want, here's my suggestion to you: start your own business that does the things you complain that other businesses don't do. I think you will find it a very enlightening experience. > To draw another analogy, think of anti-monopoly laws...on the macro level, for most citizens, and even for most businesses, they are good. No, they're not, they're terrible. The main effect of their application has been to make products and services more expensive for consumers, not less. The "monopolies" that were driven out of business or forced to break up under such laws (e.g., Standard Oil or Alcoa Aluminum) got their huge market share by providing their products more cheaply and in greater quantities than any of their competitors. The anti-trust suits against them were not instigated by consumers who weren't being well served (there weren't any); they were instigated by the competitors, who found it much easier to get the government to invoke laws to their benefit (and to the detriment of their customers) than to actually compete.
  - ironmagma 5y ago
    > As others have said, all that will do is make it much harder to start a business. And as I said, this rule would only apply to companies of a certain size and revenue. > The actual rights embodied in our Constitution and laws are not rights to demand that other people do things for you Not true. First amendment guaranteeing right to exercise your religious choice is useless if nobody is out there enforcing that right, protecting it for you. Its very existence demands someone protect it for you. If they don't... well, you don't have that right anymore. The fifth amendment guarantees your ability to use a grand jury. What use is that if the jury simply refuses to serve you? Answer: They're not allowed to not serve you, thus they are forced to do something for you. Monopolies are bad for consumers because no one can compete with them effectively. To offer "just compete with them" as a solution is just ignorant to this concept. With scale comes efficiency, and when you are efficient enough, you don't need to compete anymore. > start your own business that does the things you complain that other businesses don't do. I think you will find it a very enlightening experience. It wouldn't be Hacker News without an assumptive, sneering remark like this. Consider that this is a website full of startup entrepreneurs and that maybe you can't safely make this assumption after all.
    - pdonis 5y ago
      > Not true. Your reasoning is specious. The government is only obligated to protect particular rights under the Constitution, not any "right" you dream up. A grand jury is not serving you; it's serving the government, in the course of the government protecting your rights. If we want the government to protect our rights, of course we have a duty to do things like serve on grand juries. But that is not a service to the individual defendants; it's a service to us as a society, through the government. > Monopolies are bad for consumers because no one can compete with them effectively. If no one can compete with them because no one can offer the same products and services at an equally low price and in equally large quantities, that's not bad for consumers. That's good. What's bad is when the government steps in at the behest of the failed competitors to break up the monopolies, raising prices, lowering supply, and making things worse for consumers, as in the historical examples I gave. If no one can compete with them effectively because they've bought special privileges from the government (which is often the case--for example, that's how railroad barons in the US in the late 19th century avoided competition, by getting the government to give them exclusive rights over particular routes), that's a reason to have less government regulation, not more. If no one can compete with them effectively because no one is even trying, then someone should try. For example, if having guaranteed human phone support is something valuable to customers, then customers will pay for it. So there's an obvious business opportunity (and all the startup entrepreneurs you refer to on this site should be champing at the bit to take it). If it's not valuable enough to customers for them to pay for it, then why should the law step in and require it?