3 ms·

PSA that no regulator simply means the sharkest shark regulates. There is no such thing as no regulator. People will regulate. The question is who and how

by yard2010 1y ago

bko 1y ago
What does this mean? If there is no regulator, someone else will use force to prevent voluntary mutually beneficial deals from taking place?
- sprinkly-dust 1y ago
  That is one of the possible outcomes right? Producers have an incentive to collude and not compete with one another. They could create a consortium to fix prices, and use tactics such as acquisitions or _dissuasion_ to prevent new, more efficient competitors from undercutting their prices, thus distorting a free market equilibrium. The consortium creates an oligopoly which prevents mutually beneficial deals that would have otherwise taken place in a regulated competitive free market between consumers and producers.
- passwordoops 1y ago
  I think that's what the comment meant. Take it metaphorically
- lucianbr 1y ago
  If there is no regulator, the company with the most money will use its money to prevent any deals that are inconvenient for it from taking place. Often those would be beneficial to the other parties or to the consumers. Maybe it's not a great choice of words to say here "the large company regulates the space" but it's definitely a problem worth pointing out.
- benreesman 1y ago
  It means that markets organize somehow. Even black markets in prison have rules (and for all I know, sensible ones under the circumstances). The drug trade has rules and norms. Cartels form and collude, the JP Morgans or Goulds of the world see excessive competition next to their neat steel or railroad trusts and decide to organize it. And sometimes this can even be an improvement (those old telephone poles with like 90 separate junctions just got too tall to be safe!) But on average, the public would like (or should want) a say in how markets are organized, because it is both possible and lucrative to induce market failure. Big Tech is especially good at this (its arguably far more their speciality than technology is). Markets are inevitable (try to stop them forming if you don't believe me), but market failures are generally not inevitable, they are generally the result of poorly refereed markets.
  - roenxi 1y ago
    > Big Tech is especially good at this (its arguably far more their speciality than technology is). Well, yes. But that does seem to gloss over the important part which is how they do it - hiring lobbyists and influencing the official regulators. If the frame is that someone is going to be the most powerful force in the market then sure, but the government setting it to be a particular body by fiat just creates a ripe target for corruption. The history of the tech industry has been one of where if left to their own devices coders would create a thriving and tolerant software ecosystem and the main thing stopping them has been IP law. And a secondary thing stopping them has been government pressure (there has been a bit of a spasm recently because of the aftereffects of, effectively, systems set up to support things like Operation Choke Point, for example). Assuming some semblance of the rule of law, Google & friends ultimately can't stop someone competing with them unless the government is active in the space the space too. More formal regulation is probably just going to cement their position further.
    - benreesman 1y ago
      Time and again people make the utterly unsubstantiated claim that attack dog regulators like Lina Khan are actually good for big business and bad for the small guy. Year after year, big business lobbies, bribes, cajoles, blackmails, whatever it takes to get rid of attack dog regulators like Lina Khan. I'm sorry friend, history does not say what you think it does. History says that good outcomes come from either brutally regulated monopolies (ATT / Western / the Labs), public/private partnerships (DoD funding the Internet, basically every major innovation we coast on today), and busting the fucking chops of mega-trusts (JP Morgan, Gould, steel, railroads, telegraph, it goes on and on). Why does big business hate aggressive regulation if it's "actually good for them"? They like a Goldilocks regulation, a little friction to new entrants, a lot of discretion in the hands of pliant former industry people. They hate Lina Khan.
      - deadpannini 1y ago
        If they hate Lina Khan, it's because she's liable to make demands on them without knowing anything about their business. In the worst case, her office turns outright extortionist, as the current administration is bent on demonstrating. None of that conflicts with the observation that large, well-financed, entrenched players better at navigating regulatory obstacles than small upstarts.
- const_cast 1y ago
  Yes. For example, Apple has complete control over their App Store. It's essentially a small economy in which they are the government, and it's a market they regulate with an iron fist. Because OUR regulators won't. But they're dictators. There's no democracy, there's no voting, and Apple does whatever it feels is best for them. Just like a dictator would run their country. There's plenty of mutually beneficial arrangements that Apple unilaterally struck down because they want to maintain their stranglehold on the market.
ferfumarma 1y ago
I cannot understanding your argument at all.
- rexpop 1y ago
  If you eliminate formal regulators (rules, laws, authoritative bodies), you haven't eliminated regulation or governance. Instead, informal forms of power take over—those who are most forceful, persuasive, or socially connected regulate what happens. This is the "tyranny of structurelessness": when no open, accountable structures exist, structure remains—it just becomes invisible, unaccountable, and often dominated by the "sharkest shark." So, "no regulator" doesn't mean freedom from regulation; it means the emergence of undemocratic, unchecked power by whoever can grab and wield it.
  - benreesman 1y ago
    I find people tend to get it when you raise cases of market activity outside the law: everyone knows the mob buys and sells things but there are still rules.

PSA that no regulator simply means the sharkest shark regulates. There is no such thing as no regulator. People will regulate. The question is who and how

bko 1y ago

What does this mean? If there is no regulator, someone else will use force to prevent voluntary mutually beneficial deals from taking place?

sprinkly-dust 1y ago
That is one of the possible outcomes right? Producers have an incentive to collude and not compete with one another. They could create a consortium to fix prices, and use tactics such as acquisitions or _dissuasion_ to prevent new, more efficient competitors from undercutting their prices, thus distorting a free market equilibrium. The consortium creates an oligopoly which prevents mutually beneficial deals that would have otherwise taken place in a regulated competitive free market between consumers and producers.
passwordoops 1y ago
I think that's what the comment meant. Take it metaphorically
lucianbr 1y ago
If there is no regulator, the company with the most money will use its money to prevent any deals that are inconvenient for it from taking place. Often those would be beneficial to the other parties or to the consumers. Maybe it's not a great choice of words to say here "the large company regulates the space" but it's definitely a problem worth pointing out.
benreesman 1y ago
It means that markets organize somehow. Even black markets in prison have rules (and for all I know, sensible ones under the circumstances). The drug trade has rules and norms. Cartels form and collude, the JP Morgans or Goulds of the world see excessive competition next to their neat steel or railroad trusts and decide to organize it. And sometimes this can even be an improvement (those old telephone poles with like 90 separate junctions just got too tall to be safe!) But on average, the public would like (or should want) a say in how markets are organized, because it is both possible and lucrative to induce market failure. Big Tech is especially good at this (its arguably far more their speciality than technology is). Markets are inevitable (try to stop them forming if you don't believe me), but market failures are generally not inevitable, they are generally the result of poorly refereed markets.
- roenxi 1y ago
  > Big Tech is especially good at this (its arguably far more their speciality than technology is). Well, yes. But that does seem to gloss over the important part which is how they do it - hiring lobbyists and influencing the official regulators. If the frame is that someone is going to be the most powerful force in the market then sure, but the government setting it to be a particular body by fiat just creates a ripe target for corruption. The history of the tech industry has been one of where if left to their own devices coders would create a thriving and tolerant software ecosystem and the main thing stopping them has been IP law. And a secondary thing stopping them has been government pressure (there has been a bit of a spasm recently because of the aftereffects of, effectively, systems set up to support things like Operation Choke Point, for example). Assuming some semblance of the rule of law, Google & friends ultimately can't stop someone competing with them unless the government is active in the space the space too. More formal regulation is probably just going to cement their position further.
  - benreesman 1y ago
    Time and again people make the utterly unsubstantiated claim that attack dog regulators like Lina Khan are actually good for big business and bad for the small guy. Year after year, big business lobbies, bribes, cajoles, blackmails, whatever it takes to get rid of attack dog regulators like Lina Khan. I'm sorry friend, history does not say what you think it does. History says that good outcomes come from either brutally regulated monopolies (ATT / Western / the Labs), public/private partnerships (DoD funding the Internet, basically every major innovation we coast on today), and busting the fucking chops of mega-trusts (JP Morgan, Gould, steel, railroads, telegraph, it goes on and on). Why does big business hate aggressive regulation if it's "actually good for them"? They like a Goldilocks regulation, a little friction to new entrants, a lot of discretion in the hands of pliant former industry people. They hate Lina Khan.
    - deadpannini 1y ago
      If they hate Lina Khan, it's because she's liable to make demands on them without knowing anything about their business. In the worst case, her office turns outright extortionist, as the current administration is bent on demonstrating. None of that conflicts with the observation that large, well-financed, entrenched players better at navigating regulatory obstacles than small upstarts.
const_cast 1y ago
Yes. For example, Apple has complete control over their App Store. It's essentially a small economy in which they are the government, and it's a market they regulate with an iron fist. Because OUR regulators won't. But they're dictators. There's no democracy, there's no voting, and Apple does whatever it feels is best for them. Just like a dictator would run their country. There's plenty of mutually beneficial arrangements that Apple unilaterally struck down because they want to maintain their stranglehold on the market.

ferfumarma 1y ago

I cannot understanding your argument at all.

rexpop 1y ago
If you eliminate formal regulators (rules, laws, authoritative bodies), you haven't eliminated regulation or governance. Instead, informal forms of power take over—those who are most forceful, persuasive, or socially connected regulate what happens. This is the "tyranny of structurelessness": when no open, accountable structures exist, structure remains—it just becomes invisible, unaccountable, and often dominated by the "sharkest shark." So, "no regulator" doesn't mean freedom from regulation; it means the emergence of undemocratic, unchecked power by whoever can grab and wield it.
- benreesman 1y ago
  I find people tend to get it when you raise cases of market activity outside the law: everyone knows the mob buys and sells things but there are still rules.