Comment by ryandrake 2 days ago
Nobody on HN wants to hear this, but REG-U-LA-TION. The glorious free market is consistently failing to solve the growing problem of cloud-tethered and app-tethered products being nerfed by their manufacturers after the point of sale.
I think those who believe regulation is universally the devil forget the era where products were received DOA and customers had no recourse while companies simply called it profit.
I can't take anyone that views regulation as universally evil seriously when history is full of stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9176267>
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44508062>
The Radithor reference is of course quite apropos, and I'm a fan of effective and principled regulation to avoid that and numerous other market failures.
Sorry, but it's CUS-TO-MERS. They buy stuff that can only be controlled via an app talking to the cloud. They buy stuff that cannot be repaired. They buy stuff that openly lies about its specs, for an "unbelievably good price". The customers go for the cheapest, all else be damned.
Education in general, and about critical thinking in particular, could help.
Your argument is in alignment with
* "There's a sucker born every minute" and
* "caveat emptor" and
* "If I can trick you into giving me your money, that's your fault"
Regulation helps discourage that.
In this case, "REG-U-LATION" actually "caused" the issue. Up-to-date LIDAR of every home in America was deemed to be invasive breach of privacy so was regulated out. This product didn't successfully account for future non-technical issues.
I "foolishly" tried to reward a previously known-good vendor by buying a product from the company that had sold me a vacuum that worked for ten years... which brings up the next truism:
* "Past performance is not an indicator of future success"
The entire snake oil industry was thriving and customers loved buying stuff that did nothing at all.
It took a hundred people, including young children, dying in sheer agony from a 100% preventable poisoning by a "medicine company" who's business was essentially dissolving off the shelf medicine powders in liquid and selling the result to really regulate chemicals meant for human ingestion. It took a president with a sympathetic ear and immense popular support for government in general to be a force for reigning in powerful corporations.
That company not only did not test that concoction on any living thing before bottling it up and selling to thousands of unwitting people, but the chemist in charge didn't even check the literature to see that the diethylene glycol he used was already thought to be lethal and had known kidney toxicity.
The company DID test its flavor and color and fragrance.
Why would they test anything else before selling it? You could be a hugely profitable company selling products that did nothing to the people who took it. Testing your products was a waste of effort and would not get you more business!
Your average consumer CANNOT judge accurately whether a medicine works. Your average doctor fails at the task, which is why we have to do blind studies in the first place.
What was true of consumers in the early 1900s is just as true today, and applies to all sorts of things that aren't medicine. Consumers will never be experts. Consumers will never be as equipped to evaluate something as the capital rich industry that produces it. There are inherent information asymmetries that make even idealized market theory fail.
Sorry, it's not. Latest example, Canon's phone app for its cameras, for GPS tagging, remote shutter, transfer to phone, didn't require any Internet access, but now they changed it to require an online login for no reason. Oh and that login only works with chrome installed.
So miss me with this caveat emptor libertarian fantasy land ("openly lies about its specs" is the buyer's fault?!)
> They buy stuff that openly lies about its specs
That one is very specifically failure or regulators and absolutely should subject to regulation. We can bicker about whether repairability should be regulated ... but false claims by the manufacturers absolutely should.
It is absurd to blame the user for this one.
But that's why the EU is so "behind" on cultivating parasitic FAANG-style tech megacorps! If they'd just do away with regulations, the EU could have some of their own, such joy!
Move fast and screw society for tasty RSUs!