Ding ding ding. You are right on the money. Our entire legal system is based on first time offenders getting off with a slap on the wrist (if even that, you'll

Ding ding ding. You are right on the money. Our entire legal system is based on first time offenders getting off with a slap on the wrist (if even that, you'll most likely get away with merely a warning if it's a new law or you were just incompetent or had bad luck) and only if you keep offending you'll get screwed eventually. Our aim is to have as much voluntary compliance as possible to the laws. In contrast, American jurisdiction is "come down hard from the get-go if it's warranted, but the richer you are the better your chances are at just lawyering yourself out of trouble", and the cultural attitude is "it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission". That fundamentally clashes with our attitude, and not just the general public but especially the courts don't like it when companies blatantly ignore our democratic decisions just to make short term money (e.g. Uber and AirBnB).