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The whole point of market economies is to let people vote with their resources. The alternative of having people vote for a representative body that regulates h

The whole point of market economies is to let people vote with their resources. The alternative of having people vote for a representative body that regulates how they transact is far worse. Best case you get a almost as good outcome. Worst case is 49.9% of people suffer horribly under state enforced "social good".

kirel33 4y ago
The whole point of market economies is for those who have the most wealth decide how resources are utilized.
- hellojesus 4y ago
  The aim is to find equilibriums though more signals and noise than any one authority could realize. The outcome is efficiency of resource allocation.
sangnoir 4y ago
> The whole point of market economies is to let people vote with their resources. How do negative externalities and imperfect information figure into that? Sure, I'd love to buy Monsanto's awesome defoliant because it's cheaper than BASF's equivalent, but I may also get cancer from it in 5 years, or I may be killing pollinating insects for many miles downwind and downstream. Do you suppose market forces could have gotten rid of lead in paint or gasoline if regulations hadn't?
- bratwurst3000 4y ago
  Hehe some would say bad products wouldnt be sold for long but the truth is that most bad products are not gone because the market dictated it but because of regulations ;)
- hellojesus 4y ago
  Regulation is a useful tool when there is quantifiable harm to an involuntary third party. That is not the case here. People have an infinite amount of electronic communication tools and services from which to choose. These are all voluntary without negative externalities causing harm on individuals outside the conversation (or outside the site when relating to the cookie policy).
  - feanaro 4y ago
    > People have an infinite amount of electronic communication tools and services from which to choose. Due to network effects of communication tools, this is not really true.
    - hellojesus 4y ago
      Network effects can be overcome locally, by talking with your contacts and getting them to move to a new app/communication mechanism. It takes time, but compelling arguments will win in the end.
      - areeh 4y ago
        I think one of the big missing pieces in your parent comment about choice and negative externalities has to do with this network effect and I do not think the argument that it can be overcome locally is a very compelling counter.
        hellojesus 4y ago
        It certainly is a difficult thing to do, but we see it happen time and time again. TikTok is now the biggest app, and it was nowhere a few years ago. Same with things like Insta, What's app, Signal, etc. It is definitely a hard thing to overcome but not impossible. Especially as people become more privacy focused. I, for example, have had zero luck moving my family to Signal, and I'm the only non iPhone in the family network with my grapheneos phone and receive constant complaints about how I mess up group threads.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > Do you suppose market forces could have gotten rid of lead in paint or gasoline if regulations hadn't? Yes. Consider how cars have become incredibly safe over the years. Is this because the government writes good regulations? No. It is because IIHS (and the government, as well) do crash tests and publish the results. Consumers gravitate towards cars that have top safety ratings. Ironically, the government is why leaded gasoline still exists at all.
kingkawn 4y ago
Many generations of people fought and died to not just let the monstrous assholes with resources decide everything.
- hellojesus 4y ago
  The market decides, which is a collection of signals from an amount of players that outweighs any one individual. It is a much better method of concensus than regulation when no involuntary third party harm exists. It ensures those that have a stake are able to vote, where the size of your vote is proportional to the resources dedicated. Of course not everyone has equal voting power. Why should they when it comes to privately consumed goods and services?
  - kingkawn 4y ago
    Because it turns into an exploitation shit show incompatible with a stable prosperous society if we just satisfy your fetish for the perfect embodiment of abstractions like “the market.”
- ultrarunner 4y ago
  Well, maybe. Some fought for the same state that turned around and gave GM a whole ton of money. My boss got a couple PPP loans, and a new car. There might be some ebb and flow to the whims of those pulling the strings, but it sure looks like those who are close to them do alright.
DaiPlusPlus 4y ago
> Worst case is 49.9% of people suffer horribly under state enforced "social good". As an iPhone, iPad, and iMessage user, please explain how I will "suffer horribly" from being able to interact with the iMessage service from non-Apple devices.
- OrvalWintermute 4y ago
  Apple seems to keep spam on iMessage fairly well controlled. If anyone can do iMessage on any device, it is logical that these protections may weaken over time.
  - DaiPlusPlus 4y ago
    I'll grant you that - but the proposed legislation isn't requiring Apple to allow iMessage users to receive unsolicited messages from external services.
    - sidlls 4y ago
      It would require additional effort on Apple's part to keep third party tools' spam efforts at bay. At some point the cost of doing that isn't something Apple could justify, and at that time unsolicited messages absolutely will increase in volume.
  - prmoustache 4y ago
    That changes nothing. I can't receive unsolicited messages on my xmpp and matrix accounts until I allow the contact invitation. At worst you could be flooded with invites but that wouldn't be much different than any one of our linkedin accounts and there could be easy mechanism to ban external servers that are reported to allow too many spammers.
- danaris 4y ago
  1) If it is prohibitively difficult (with what that means entirely defined by Apple) for them to fully support all features of iMessage to non-Apple users, and the law requires that other devices have full parity (I don't know if it does; the article is pretty short and detail-light), then Apple may have to remove features from iMessage even on Apple devices. 2) Apple may choose not to try to implement new features that they otherwise would have, for several possible reasons: similar to #1, they don't think they can feasibly implement them cross-platform; due to the extra effort of supporting multiple platforms, they no longer have the dev resources to devote to it; they think it will no longer be as profitable; etc
jsmith99 4y ago
Even the biggest fan of free markets agrees government need to prevent market failures, such as natural monopolies caused by network effects.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Even the biggest fan of free markets agrees government need to prevent market failures, such as natural monopolies caused by network effects. No, the biggest fans of “free markets” do not think that, in fact, they mock both the general idea of “market failure” and the specific places where people outside their faith identify such failures: https://mises.org/library/market-failure https://mises.org/library/market-failure https://mises.org/library/market-failure-myth https://mises.org/library/market-failure-myth https://mises.org/library/myth-market-failure https://mises.org/library/myth-market-failure https://mises.org/wire/healthcare-and-market-failure https://mises.org/wire/healthcare-and-market-failure https://mises.org/library/response-market-failure-drones https://mises.org/library/response-market-failure-drones
  - hellojesus 4y ago
    I clicked the first link, which argues that free markets are bad because central banking has failed. Central banking does not exist in a free market. Of course it will fail. Free markets are designed precisely to avoid the inevitable failure of a central authority.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > I clicked the first link, which argues that free markets are bad because central banking has failed. You may have clicked on it, but I don’t see how you got that message from it. It argues that free markets are good, and that problems attributed to “market failure” are instead failures of other things (like central banking) that are not features of free markets. (All of the other pieces argue variations on the same thing; its plays a central role in the Mises Institute’s economic dogma.)
      - 4y ago
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> Best case you get a almost as good outcome Ah, so you have never heard of market failure, market manipulation, cartels, negative externalities, qash trading, self dealing, insider trading, wage supression agreements, and dozens of others? You do realise that without government to keep fraud and manipulation in check 'free market' collapses into anarchy in one week?
- coxmichael 4y ago
  In more political phraseology, that would be tyranny rather than anarchy (that is, without hierarchy)
- freedomben 4y ago
  > You do realise that without government to keep fraud and manipulation in check 'free market' collapses into anarchy in one week? Can you provide an example of this? Or maybe point out some theory/philosophy that builds to this? I'm not trying to be a dick, I'm legitimately curious what is out there as this doesn't seem like a self-evident claim.
- ultrarunner 4y ago
  Of your list, the party that comes to mind as a salient example most often is the state.
jrm4 4y ago
The whole point of market economies is to let people freely trade goods and services, but has absolutely NOTHING to do with the silly fantasy of "consumption equals governance." That's textbook nerd BS that just doesn't play out well in real life. You need direct governance, you can't expect a tool designed for one thing to do another.

kirel33 4y ago

The whole point of market economies is for those who have the most wealth decide how resources are utilized.

hellojesus 4y ago
The aim is to find equilibriums though more signals and noise than any one authority could realize. The outcome is efficiency of resource allocation.

sangnoir 4y ago

> The whole point of market economies is to let people vote with their resources. How do negative externalities and imperfect information figure into that? Sure, I'd love to buy Monsanto's awesome defoliant because it's cheaper than BASF's equivalent, but I may also get cancer from it in 5 years, or I may be killing pollinating insects for many miles downwind and downstream. Do you suppose market forces could have gotten rid of lead in paint or gasoline if regulations hadn't?

bratwurst3000 4y ago
Hehe some would say bad products wouldnt be sold for long but the truth is that most bad products are not gone because the market dictated it but because of regulations ;)
hellojesus 4y ago
Regulation is a useful tool when there is quantifiable harm to an involuntary third party. That is not the case here. People have an infinite amount of electronic communication tools and services from which to choose. These are all voluntary without negative externalities causing harm on individuals outside the conversation (or outside the site when relating to the cookie policy).
- feanaro 4y ago
  > People have an infinite amount of electronic communication tools and services from which to choose. Due to network effects of communication tools, this is not really true.
  - hellojesus 4y ago
    Network effects can be overcome locally, by talking with your contacts and getting them to move to a new app/communication mechanism. It takes time, but compelling arguments will win in the end.
    - areeh 4y ago
      I think one of the big missing pieces in your parent comment about choice and negative externalities has to do with this network effect and I do not think the argument that it can be overcome locally is a very compelling counter.
      - hellojesus 4y ago
        It certainly is a difficult thing to do, but we see it happen time and time again. TikTok is now the biggest app, and it was nowhere a few years ago. Same with things like Insta, What's app, Signal, etc. It is definitely a hard thing to overcome but not impossible. Especially as people become more privacy focused. I, for example, have had zero luck moving my family to Signal, and I'm the only non iPhone in the family network with my grapheneos phone and receive constant complaints about how I mess up group threads.
rootusrootus 4y ago
> Do you suppose market forces could have gotten rid of lead in paint or gasoline if regulations hadn't? Yes. Consider how cars have become incredibly safe over the years. Is this because the government writes good regulations? No. It is because IIHS (and the government, as well) do crash tests and publish the results. Consumers gravitate towards cars that have top safety ratings. Ironically, the government is why leaded gasoline still exists at all.

kingkawn 4y ago

Many generations of people fought and died to not just let the monstrous assholes with resources decide everything.

hellojesus 4y ago
The market decides, which is a collection of signals from an amount of players that outweighs any one individual. It is a much better method of concensus than regulation when no involuntary third party harm exists. It ensures those that have a stake are able to vote, where the size of your vote is proportional to the resources dedicated. Of course not everyone has equal voting power. Why should they when it comes to privately consumed goods and services?
- kingkawn 4y ago
  Because it turns into an exploitation shit show incompatible with a stable prosperous society if we just satisfy your fetish for the perfect embodiment of abstractions like “the market.”
ultrarunner 4y ago
Well, maybe. Some fought for the same state that turned around and gave GM a whole ton of money. My boss got a couple PPP loans, and a new car. There might be some ebb and flow to the whims of those pulling the strings, but it sure looks like those who are close to them do alright.

DaiPlusPlus 4y ago

> Worst case is 49.9% of people suffer horribly under state enforced "social good". As an iPhone, iPad, and iMessage user, please explain how I will "suffer horribly" from being able to interact with the iMessage service from non-Apple devices.

OrvalWintermute 4y ago
Apple seems to keep spam on iMessage fairly well controlled. If anyone can do iMessage on any device, it is logical that these protections may weaken over time.
- DaiPlusPlus 4y ago
  I'll grant you that - but the proposed legislation isn't requiring Apple to allow iMessage users to receive unsolicited messages from external services.
  - sidlls 4y ago
    It would require additional effort on Apple's part to keep third party tools' spam efforts at bay. At some point the cost of doing that isn't something Apple could justify, and at that time unsolicited messages absolutely will increase in volume.
- prmoustache 4y ago
  That changes nothing. I can't receive unsolicited messages on my xmpp and matrix accounts until I allow the contact invitation. At worst you could be flooded with invites but that wouldn't be much different than any one of our linkedin accounts and there could be easy mechanism to ban external servers that are reported to allow too many spammers.
danaris 4y ago
1) If it is prohibitively difficult (with what that means entirely defined by Apple) for them to fully support all features of iMessage to non-Apple users, and the law requires that other devices have full parity (I don't know if it does; the article is pretty short and detail-light), then Apple may have to remove features from iMessage even on Apple devices. 2) Apple may choose not to try to implement new features that they otherwise would have, for several possible reasons: similar to #1, they don't think they can feasibly implement them cross-platform; due to the extra effort of supporting multiple platforms, they no longer have the dev resources to devote to it; they think it will no longer be as profitable; etc

jsmith99 4y ago

Even the biggest fan of free markets agrees government need to prevent market failures, such as natural monopolies caused by network effects.

dragonwriter 4y ago
> Even the biggest fan of free markets agrees government need to prevent market failures, such as natural monopolies caused by network effects. No, the biggest fans of “free markets” do not think that, in fact, they mock both the general idea of “market failure” and the specific places where people outside their faith identify such failures: https://mises.org/library/market-failure https://mises.org/library/market-failure https://mises.org/library/market-failure-myth https://mises.org/library/market-failure-myth https://mises.org/library/myth-market-failure https://mises.org/library/myth-market-failure https://mises.org/wire/healthcare-and-market-failure https://mises.org/wire/healthcare-and-market-failure https://mises.org/library/response-market-failure-drones https://mises.org/library/response-market-failure-drones
- hellojesus 4y ago
  I clicked the first link, which argues that free markets are bad because central banking has failed. Central banking does not exist in a free market. Of course it will fail. Free markets are designed precisely to avoid the inevitable failure of a central authority.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > I clicked the first link, which argues that free markets are bad because central banking has failed. You may have clicked on it, but I don’t see how you got that message from it. It argues that free markets are good, and that problems attributed to “market failure” are instead failures of other things (like central banking) that are not features of free markets. (All of the other pieces argue variations on the same thing; its plays a central role in the Mises Institute’s economic dogma.)
    - 4y ago

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

> Best case you get a almost as good outcome Ah, so you have never heard of market failure, market manipulation, cartels, negative externalities, qash trading, self dealing, insider trading, wage supression agreements, and dozens of others? You do realise that without government to keep fraud and manipulation in check 'free market' collapses into anarchy in one week?

coxmichael 4y ago
In more political phraseology, that would be tyranny rather than anarchy (that is, without hierarchy)
freedomben 4y ago
> You do realise that without government to keep fraud and manipulation in check 'free market' collapses into anarchy in one week? Can you provide an example of this? Or maybe point out some theory/philosophy that builds to this? I'm not trying to be a dick, I'm legitimately curious what is out there as this doesn't seem like a self-evident claim.
ultrarunner 4y ago
Of your list, the party that comes to mind as a salient example most often is the state.

jrm4 4y ago

The whole point of market economies is to let people freely trade goods and services, but has absolutely NOTHING to do with the silly fantasy of "consumption equals governance." That's textbook nerd BS that just doesn't play out well in real life. You need direct governance, you can't expect a tool designed for one thing to do another.