3 ms·

Why do we need to regulate all this, I thought the market will do what customers want?

SlightlyLeftPad 2y ago
That’s the biggest lie of capitalism. I do think in time it does work out largely in that direction but the windy road to get there is ripe with bear traps and pits of despair. To qualify that statement, if it doesn’t improve shareholder value, it doesn’t matter. And the worst CEOs will take the short term gain for their personal gain over what’s better for the company and thus customers long term.
- nikitaga 2y ago
  > in time it does work out largely in that direction To be fair, that's usually thanks to government interventions and regulations, not thanks to free market staying free. Markets fail for very known, very well described reasons. When they do, they rarely recover on their own, and the abusive rent seekers only become more entrenched with time (again, in the absence of regulations to curb that). In this startup community we see a lot of "disruption" (free-market-success) stories, but in the broader world, things don't usually work out that way, and when they do, it's often just to replace one rent seeker with another. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure
  - SlightlyLeftPad 2y ago
    Definitely, my intent wasn’t to hand wave away the role government plays there. The lag that is inherent in some regulatory departments though seems too long and it’s the working class that suffers to most. I think FAA and NASA are good examples of largely well-run departments while the SEC, EPA, and FDA appear to be largely a sham who really let corporations get away with literal murder to the detriment of the greater good. Things have to get extremely bad before they are able to do anything perhaps because their authority is stripped.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > the biggest lie of capitalism This is a totem. Nobody who believes in capitalism thinks anarchy yields efficiency. (Just like nobody advocating against it does so in favour of totalitarianism.) Instead, you've got two groups of people not shouting at each other, but shouting among each other about how stupid a stylised representation of the other tribe's beliefs are. To the degree the groups communicate, it's in embracing the other's exxagerated representations as shows of conformity to their own groups.
  - SlightlyLeftPad 2y ago
    Despite me calling out a lie of capitalism, you’re not wrong at all and I completely agree with you. I suppose I went to school in a cult of rationality.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Despite me calling out a lie of capitalism That's the point, though. You didn't. Not because what was said is true. (It's not.) But because nobody honestly preaches it--certainly not here. Arguing about the specifics of regulation is hard. Simpler to devolve to tribal identification, pretending somebody is seriously arguing for a rules-free or greed-free utopia when nobody is. It's just folks pretending others are.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
    Capitalism as the private ownership of the means of production wouldn’t require anarchy. Nationalization is certainly off limits, but a government that exists solely to maintain a capitalist status quo could still exist. In that case, we could imagine that advocates for a pure capitalism would want the abolition of social services, a flat (if any) tax, the smallest military necessary to prevent invasion, and so on. I’d argue this looks quite similar to the platforms of republicans furthest to the economic right, eg rand paul. The other side’s extremists, ie those who would call for centralized or public ownership of industry, have practically no mainstream political relevance. The closest you’ll get at the federal level are advocates for the nordic model. This unbalanced setup is very unsurprising if you consider that the overton window centers around normalcy, and the most normal perspective in America is a predominantly capitalist system with some labor protections, taxes, and unemployment tacked on. All of this is unnecessary to mention, however, because you can easily find people arguing, all the time, that the invisible hand naturally prioritizes the desires of customers. This is such a default position that I’m pretty sure I was actually taught that in school (Mississippi to be fair).
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>I thought the market will do what customers want? Who's still making that argument? The invisiblle hand died at least 30 years ago. So the endgame is simply monopolization (especially since the FTC has been getting gutted for a decade now, and is being gutted in real time). And monopolization removes choice. WOuld be it awesome if we could all band together and protest against any site that makes subscription cancellation hard? Yes. But it's not very realistic.
pptr 2y ago
App store subscriptions are pretty easy to cancel.
Yizahi 2y ago
Try unsubscribing from any printed journal nowadays. Then tell me exactly how many customers want this and why that number is zero. And lastly explain how the supposedly "free" market is going to "self-regulate" this.
gwbas1c 2y ago
Because a free market requires a government to make and enforce the rules. Otherwise, it's not a "free" market but a market dominated by unfair practices. The people who complain about government intervention are like children complaining about their bedtimes: Unreasonable. > I thought the market will do what customers want? I personally NEVER subscribe to anything unless I heavily use it. It's specifically because I fear that I'll have to jump through hoops to unsubscribe.
BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
Is this sarcasm?

That’s the biggest lie of capitalism. I do think in time it does work out largely in that direction but the windy road to get there is ripe with bear traps and pits of despair. To qualify that statement, if it doesn’t improve shareholder value, it doesn’t matter. And the worst CEOs will take the short term gain for their personal gain over what’s better for the company and thus customers long term.

nikitaga 2y ago
> in time it does work out largely in that direction To be fair, that's usually thanks to government interventions and regulations, not thanks to free market staying free. Markets fail for very known, very well described reasons. When they do, they rarely recover on their own, and the abusive rent seekers only become more entrenched with time (again, in the absence of regulations to curb that). In this startup community we see a lot of "disruption" (free-market-success) stories, but in the broader world, things don't usually work out that way, and when they do, it's often just to replace one rent seeker with another. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure
- SlightlyLeftPad 2y ago
  Definitely, my intent wasn’t to hand wave away the role government plays there. The lag that is inherent in some regulatory departments though seems too long and it’s the working class that suffers to most. I think FAA and NASA are good examples of largely well-run departments while the SEC, EPA, and FDA appear to be largely a sham who really let corporations get away with literal murder to the detriment of the greater good. Things have to get extremely bad before they are able to do anything perhaps because their authority is stripped.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> the biggest lie of capitalism This is a totem. Nobody who believes in capitalism thinks anarchy yields efficiency. (Just like nobody advocating against it does so in favour of totalitarianism.) Instead, you've got two groups of people not shouting at each other, but shouting among each other about how stupid a stylised representation of the other tribe's beliefs are. To the degree the groups communicate, it's in embracing the other's exxagerated representations as shows of conformity to their own groups.
- SlightlyLeftPad 2y ago
  Despite me calling out a lie of capitalism, you’re not wrong at all and I completely agree with you. I suppose I went to school in a cult of rationality.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Despite me calling out a lie of capitalism That's the point, though. You didn't. Not because what was said is true. (It's not.) But because nobody honestly preaches it--certainly not here. Arguing about the specifics of regulation is hard. Simpler to devolve to tribal identification, pretending somebody is seriously arguing for a rules-free or greed-free utopia when nobody is. It's just folks pretending others are.
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
  Capitalism as the private ownership of the means of production wouldn’t require anarchy. Nationalization is certainly off limits, but a government that exists solely to maintain a capitalist status quo could still exist. In that case, we could imagine that advocates for a pure capitalism would want the abolition of social services, a flat (if any) tax, the smallest military necessary to prevent invasion, and so on. I’d argue this looks quite similar to the platforms of republicans furthest to the economic right, eg rand paul. The other side’s extremists, ie those who would call for centralized or public ownership of industry, have practically no mainstream political relevance. The closest you’ll get at the federal level are advocates for the nordic model. This unbalanced setup is very unsurprising if you consider that the overton window centers around normalcy, and the most normal perspective in America is a predominantly capitalist system with some labor protections, taxes, and unemployment tacked on. All of this is unnecessary to mention, however, because you can easily find people arguing, all the time, that the invisible hand naturally prioritizes the desires of customers. This is such a default position that I’m pretty sure I was actually taught that in school (Mississippi to be fair).

johnnyanmac 2y ago

>I thought the market will do what customers want? Who's still making that argument? The invisiblle hand died at least 30 years ago. So the endgame is simply monopolization (especially since the FTC has been getting gutted for a decade now, and is being gutted in real time). And monopolization removes choice. WOuld be it awesome if we could all band together and protest against any site that makes subscription cancellation hard? Yes. But it's not very realistic.

pptr 2y ago

App store subscriptions are pretty easy to cancel.

Yizahi 2y ago

Try unsubscribing from any printed journal nowadays. Then tell me exactly how many customers want this and why that number is zero. And lastly explain how the supposedly "free" market is going to "self-regulate" this.

gwbas1c 2y ago

Because a free market requires a government to make and enforce the rules. Otherwise, it's not a "free" market but a market dominated by unfair practices. The people who complain about government intervention are like children complaining about their bedtimes: Unreasonable. > I thought the market will do what customers want? I personally NEVER subscribe to anything unless I heavily use it. It's specifically because I fear that I'll have to jump through hoops to unsubscribe.

BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago

Is this sarcasm?