4 ms·

By default, consumers are their own best regulator. You buy only the bread that tastes good, and that shoes that fit, so the market will provide, etc.

By default, consumers are their own best regulator. You buy only the bread that tastes good, and that shoes that fit, so the market will provide, etc. This only really works if the product is cheap and most people can afford to try lots of competitors, or if the consumer is sufficiently knowledgeable. It works pretty well for bread or chocolate: most people can afford to try different brands until they find one they like. No knowledge required. It works less well for relatively expensive items like printers with relatively hidden pitfalls that require a some level of domain knowledge and research to comprehend before purchase. Most people can't buy a different printer every week until they find the one they like, and outside of the HN crowd many (most?) people don't have the domain knowledge to research a tech product properly. Obviously third-party review sources (Wirecutter, Consumer Reports, whatever) can mitigate this somewhat but they are subject to their own biases. The second example: thanks to harmonised EU rules you can put palm oil in your chocolate without loudly declaring it and still call it chocolate on the packaging. (You just have to mention the palm oil in the fine-print list of ingredients.) To me an ideal solution for printers or other cloud-dependent tech devices would be along these lines. I don't think HP's behavior should be outlawed, but there needs to be standardized messaging/warnings telling the consumer that: 1. the box contains a device that is nonfunctional unless consumers pay an ongoing subscription fee 2. what that fee is 3. a warning and the manufacturer can essentially brick the device at any time by intentionally discontinuing support or going out of business

brightlancer 3y ago
[flagged]
- KerrAvon 3y ago
  You’re literally arguing with someone advocating for consumers to be provided with enough information to be able to make decisions for themselves. They’re not saying they want the government to ban these practices, just to make them non-deceptive. Which is a role the government has performed successfully in the past: see the Pure Food and Drug Act.
- Two4 3y ago
  If this is true then why, for the love of God, can I not walk into my local and buy a halfway decent printer?
- lostlogin 3y ago
  > Governments are very good at making pronouncements but they are slow and often no more expert than the consumer. Consumers can correct their mistakes much faster than bureaucracies can. Here in New Zealand we have some legislation called the consumer guarantees act. It’s gold, and has all sorts of gems. My favourite is that things I buy should last an amount of time commensurate with the price I paid. For example, my iPhone was replaced at 3 years for a faulty home button and my Stihl saw had its motor replaced at 3 years. It’s amazing. I see the sort of warranties available in other countries and wince.
Viliam1234 3y ago
> It works pretty well for bread or chocolate: most people can afford to try different brands until they find one they like. No knowledge required. Even that assumes that the bread/chocolate is not poisonous. (Which again is a form of regulation.)
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  Yeah. Excellent point. The free market hardliners' counterargument is that "well, it's not in companies' best financial interest to sell poisonous chocolate, so we can trust them not to do it to the best of their ability." But that assumes consumers can tell when they're being poisoned. If a person drops dead immediately after eating a candy bar... sure, that's pretty obvious. But long-term harms can't be easily attributed to a single product. The free market is a very very useful tool. So is government regulation. Both of them also are wholly inadequate on their own.
- eru 3y ago
  That's a motte-and-bailey fallacy. Someone might even agree with you that this kind of minimal and general regulation is useful (eg 'no labeling poison as food'). But that doesn't mean that all the other regulation is necessary nor useful.
  - JohnBooty 3y ago
    Someone might even agree with you that this kind of minimal and general regulation is useful (eg 'no labeling poison as food') Please consider a more realistic example. We're not talking about taking a jar of rat poison and labeling it "chocolate" and the need to prevent this with a law. Think of the more general cases of adulterated foods and/or foods with unacceptable levels of harmful chemicals whose like mercury, arsenic, etc. These are things that consumers cannot practically check for. A reasonable free-market response might be that if consumers really think this is important, they will pay more for products that have been vetted by some trusted third party and therefore the government is not needed. There could even be multiple such third parties and consumers could vote with their wallets for the one(s) that they find best. This already exists in a sense in the form of organizations that certify food as halal, kosher, etc. I don't totally disagree with this, but I think it is ripe for corruption and monopoly in ways that a well-functioning government is not. But that doesn't mean that all the other regulation is necessary nor useful. Nobody is claiming that all existing regulation is necessary or useful. That is not a good-faith interpretation of anything anybody is saying.
account42 3y ago
> This only really works if the product is cheap and most people can afford to try lots of competitors, or if the consumer is sufficiently knowledgeable. It also only works if there are lots of competitors. With tech that is often not the case. You probably only have a handful of consumer printer manufacturers to choose from and if all of them decide to pull the same shit (because its more profitable) then you're SOL.

brightlancer 3y ago

[flagged]

KerrAvon 3y ago
You’re literally arguing with someone advocating for consumers to be provided with enough information to be able to make decisions for themselves. They’re not saying they want the government to ban these practices, just to make them non-deceptive. Which is a role the government has performed successfully in the past: see the Pure Food and Drug Act.
Two4 3y ago
If this is true then why, for the love of God, can I not walk into my local and buy a halfway decent printer?
lostlogin 3y ago
> Governments are very good at making pronouncements but they are slow and often no more expert than the consumer. Consumers can correct their mistakes much faster than bureaucracies can. Here in New Zealand we have some legislation called the consumer guarantees act. It’s gold, and has all sorts of gems. My favourite is that things I buy should last an amount of time commensurate with the price I paid. For example, my iPhone was replaced at 3 years for a faulty home button and my Stihl saw had its motor replaced at 3 years. It’s amazing. I see the sort of warranties available in other countries and wince.

Viliam1234 3y ago

> It works pretty well for bread or chocolate: most people can afford to try different brands until they find one they like. No knowledge required. Even that assumes that the bread/chocolate is not poisonous. (Which again is a form of regulation.)

JohnBooty 3y ago
Yeah. Excellent point. The free market hardliners' counterargument is that "well, it's not in companies' best financial interest to sell poisonous chocolate, so we can trust them not to do it to the best of their ability." But that assumes consumers can tell when they're being poisoned. If a person drops dead immediately after eating a candy bar... sure, that's pretty obvious. But long-term harms can't be easily attributed to a single product. The free market is a very very useful tool. So is government regulation. Both of them also are wholly inadequate on their own.
eru 3y ago
That's a motte-and-bailey fallacy. Someone might even agree with you that this kind of minimal and general regulation is useful (eg 'no labeling poison as food'). But that doesn't mean that all the other regulation is necessary nor useful.
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  Someone might even agree with you that this kind of minimal and general regulation is useful (eg 'no labeling poison as food') Please consider a more realistic example. We're not talking about taking a jar of rat poison and labeling it "chocolate" and the need to prevent this with a law. Think of the more general cases of adulterated foods and/or foods with unacceptable levels of harmful chemicals whose like mercury, arsenic, etc. These are things that consumers cannot practically check for. A reasonable free-market response might be that if consumers really think this is important, they will pay more for products that have been vetted by some trusted third party and therefore the government is not needed. There could even be multiple such third parties and consumers could vote with their wallets for the one(s) that they find best. This already exists in a sense in the form of organizations that certify food as halal, kosher, etc. I don't totally disagree with this, but I think it is ripe for corruption and monopoly in ways that a well-functioning government is not. But that doesn't mean that all the other regulation is necessary nor useful. Nobody is claiming that all existing regulation is necessary or useful. That is not a good-faith interpretation of anything anybody is saying.

account42 3y ago

> This only really works if the product is cheap and most people can afford to try lots of competitors, or if the consumer is sufficiently knowledgeable. It also only works if there are lots of competitors. With tech that is often not the case. You probably only have a handful of consumer printer manufacturers to choose from and if all of them decide to pull the same shit (because its more profitable) then you're SOL.