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> In free market it's also OK to cut costs as much as possible, making chair that explode and kill the user one day after the warranty expires. No, it isn't, b
by pdonis 3y ago
> In free market it's also OK to cut costs as much as possible, making chair that explode and kill the user one day after the warranty expires.
No, it isn't, because nobody will buy chairs from a company that does that. In a free market, no company can use the get out of jail free card of "but I was following all the regulations". Businesses have to actually meet customer needs.
And in a free market, customers can't delude themselves that Big Brother is looking out for them (even though Big Brother is not actually doing that); they know that they have to enforce quality if that's what they want. That means customers know that it's on them to be savvy enough to be able to evaluate the quality of products and services.
> That's why we have regulation: to establish the minimum standards.
That's what regulators claim, but all history shows that claim to be wrong. The end result of regulations is to reduce the quality and availability of products, not increase them. The wheelchair market described in the article is a classic example: it's regulated up one side and down the other, yet customers can't get simple things like proper footrests.
> Simple medical devices like wheelchairs (Class I or Class II) are also not super over-regulated, you don't need to do clinical trials to certify them.
Doesn't this contradict your claim that regulation is the only way to avoid exploding chairs? If you don't do clinical trials, how do you know the chairs won't explode one day after the warranty expires?
Of course the answer to this is that the regulators just, you know, look at the design of the chairs to evaluate them for certification. But customers could do the same thing for themselves, at less cost (what, you think those government regulators work for free?). So the regulations are actually adding zero value. But they're certainly not adding zero cost.
> All-in-all it'll cost you around $10m, which is not at all a moat.
So you'll be going into the wheelchair business then? Looks like there's plenty of opportunity to out-compete the current incumbents.
- wolverine876 3y agoIt's all theoretical. Do you see it actually working out this way? When and where? > regulators just, you know, look at the design of the chairs to evaluate them for certification. But customers could do the same thing for themselves, at less cost (what, you think those government regulators work for free?). So the regulations are actually adding zero value. But they're certainly not adding zero cost. I have little idea how to evaluate the safety of an electric wheelchair, and don't have the time to acquire the expertise to learn how to do that with everything I buy. But we all can chip in and pay someone, who has the expertise, to do it once rather than than millions of people doing it redundantly.
- roughly 3y agoEternal September, except it’s an Econ 1 class.
- wolverine876 3y agoIt seems like quite a rush of it today. Did someone put up the anarcho-libertarian bat signal?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jjk166 3y agoThen you can choose to pay that premium for a wheelchair, or any other good or service, evaluated by a third party of your choosing. But others, with potentially different requirements, should be able to choose different third parties who evaluate by different criteria. At the very least, you should be able to disregard a third party's evaluation of safety for a wheelchair. The idea that there should be one master evaluation and all other evaluations are redundant holds no water.
- wolverine876 3y agoWhat if the wheelchair malfunctions and injures someone else? What if my car malfunctions and causes an accident? Also, I don't want to live in world of frauds and scams and other crimes, trying to navigate it, for obvious reasons. It's also an economic disaster. You're doing an awful lot of work to empower already powerful people by removing democratic power over our society.
- jjk166 2y ago> What if the wheelchair malfunctions and injures someone else? What if my car malfunctions and causes an accident? Yes, what if it does? Unfortunately getting FDA approval isn't going to do anything to prevent that. I fully acknowledge that regulatory bodies are good for dealing with externalities, but consumer protections do not fall under that category. > Also, I don't want to live in world of frauds and scams and other crimes, trying to navigate it, for obvious reasons Then, as I said, just stick with the FDA approved products. Government standards would still exist, you'd just have the option to purchase things that didn't meet those standards. The freedom to color outside the lines includes the freedom to color within them. You're not harmed by other people choosing differently. > It's also an economic disaster. Citation needed. Typically heavily regulated economies fare worse than those where competition is permitted. > You're doing an awful lot of work to empower already powerful people by removing democratic power over our society. We clearly have very different ideas about who holds power in our society.
- photonthug 3y ago> No, it isn't, because nobody will buy chairs from a company that does that. In a free market, no company can use the get out of jail free card of "but I was following all the regulations". Businesses have to actually meet customer needs. Meeting customer needs is optional, what businesses might decide to do instead is change their name once a week on amazon/ebay, hire teams of robots to fake reviews, and then deceive customers into buying doll house furniture at full size prices. It seems unlikely you are unaware of this type of behavior, so I guess you have an explanation for how an unregulated market in a modern context is supposed to deal with bad actors?
- bcrosby95 3y agoRight, that's why formaldehyde was used as a preservative, and both arsenic and lead as food coloring - despite knowing it killed people at the time.