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> See health care, insurance, funeral business, hairdressers, and so on. Could you clarify the pattern?

• sosuke 12y ago
  Each have state licensing and regulation.
• icebraining 12y ago
  They are all licensed professions in many US states. Not only do you need a license, as they're usually not valid across states, so a Texas hairdresser can't work in California, and vice-versa. NPR had a report about the growth of licensing a couple of years ago: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/06/21/154826233/why-its-illegal-to-braid-hair-without-a-license http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/06/21/154826233/why-its-...
  • rrradical 12y ago
    It's terrifying to think that a license could be required for software development.
    • th0ma5 12y ago
      I know with Android you can, but can you develop for I devices without a license? I understand you're talking government licenses, and that one could jailbreak an iDevice, but can you develop legally without an Apple license?
      • PeterisP 12y ago
        Sure, you can - the publisher needs an agreement with Apple to publish stuff on App Store; but it's perfectly legal to have a hundred "unlicenced" developers (as in, out of Apple Developer Program) working on that product as long as you've got someone "licenced" to handle the submission process. And it's also perfectly legal to develop iOS stuff without any license whatsoever, simply then it won't be distributed by Apple in it's store, and will be usable only on jailbroken devices. There's nothing illegal about jailbreaking devices nor about developing for them. iOS development as such isn't a licenced profession, simply the main distribution channel is very controlled.
• mikeash 12y ago
  All they have in common is that they're heavily regulated at a local level. A doctor's medical license is only good in one state, and he has to get recertified if he wants to practice elsewhere. With insurance, you can't shop across state lines. (In fact, one of the more reasonable Republican proposals for an alternative to Obamacare is to allow people to buy health insurance across state lines to open up competition.) Similarly, hairdressers need local licenses and are subject to local regulations. I presume funerals are the same, but I'm less familiar with them. For examples the other way, consider electronics (there are some warranty regulations like rules around lightning damage in Florida, but I believe it's pretty minor by comparison) or aviation (the FAA handles just about everything, and local governments pretty much just leave it be besides taxing you if you keep an airplane in their jurisdiction and maybe set up some rules about noise). As far as what causes an industry to fall into one category or another, it seems to be largely random, but I'd hazard a guess that a lot of it has to do with when the industry arose and how important it's perceived to be. The US started out with fairly powerful state governments and that power has been slowly shifting to the federal government ever since. You could probably get a medical license, or something at least vaguely similar from various states before the revolution, but by the time anybody cared about regulating airplanes, the feds were much more in charge.
• dredmorbius 12y ago
  Each is regulated state-by-state. You could add banking to the mix.