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> 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

• 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?
    • ironmagma 5y ago
      There is a wide category of things afforded to ordinary citizens categorized as "rights" which aren't in the constitution. [1] > A grand jury is not serving you; it's serving the government ... it's a service to us as a society These are contradictory. If it's a service to the society, it's a service to me as well, as I am part of the society. True, not "just" me, but I also never advocated for any right that applied to just me. The discussion was always about creating a right for everyone to discuss with (reasonably sized, reasonably financed) companies, their reasonably-chosen concerns. > If no one can compete with them [...] that's not bad for consumers. That's good. Yes, individual transactions become cheaper when the business is large. However, choice is greater when the business is small, because then there are more competitors. We can agree that it would not be efficient for the economy for every establishment to be its own business, meaning that every hardware store and every restaurant was its own corporation. However can we not agree that it is also not efficient when a very large business goes bankrupt and we either have to urgently reshuffle the economy and/or bail them out? And additionally, do you not think predatory pricing is a thing? This is something recognized to be used by institutions such as Wal-mart and Amazon. > if having guaranteed human phone support is something valuable to customers, then customers will pay for it. How would I even tell the company I want this feature, if I can't get through to them on the phone in the first place? How would they know it's wanted, if they never hear from anybody? And if they can't even answer to people who have paid them for their core product, why would they to anyone else? [1] https://www.hg.org/consume.html https://www.hg.org/consume.html