>They'd refuse to drive you to the Bronx.
They already do. Routinely. And the best you can do is a 311 complaint, which feels somewhat dick-ish.
>A lot of the regulations that seem obviously protectionist now really weren't at the time they were implemented.
True. Somewhat analogous to the law of unintended consequences. One potential way to address this would be through the use of sunset provisions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_provision .
The downside of using sunset provisions would be the regulatory volatility given our (somewhat) hyperpartisan regulatory environment.
You can usually tell whether a regulation is obviously protectionist, by what the incumbents say about it. Incumbents are basically paid to say exclusively the things that improve their business prospects/competitive position/share prices. It's almost a fiduciary duty. As a consequence, when the a hotel company CEO complains about AirBNB or a medallion owner complains about Uber, you'll notice that they are usually asking for these services to be banned, (or regulated into uncompetitiveness) rather than regulated. In the example cited on the post - the duopolies never asked for the new service to be regulated to their standards - they simply asked to ban it. Even more egregious are moves like the DC City Council repeatedly trying to generate a whole new set of laws just to deal with Uber.
Anytime an incumbent objects to the illegalness or dubious legal position of a new service, you can pretty much bet its because they feel threatened. The fact that it happens to be in the "public interest" (in terms of the service doing something that's against today's law) is merely secondary.
> Regulations follows business as much as business follows regulations.
A lot of real insight in this comment. Regulations and laws are mostly what society agreed was allowable last time we decided to negotiate it. While we (as startups/consumers/businesspeople/engineers) should always strive to do the right thing, we should also remember that in many cases, the "right" thing can be considered illegal (if this wasn't the case, laws would never change to reflect society's current preferences).
Comments
>They'd refuse to drive you to the Bronx. They already do. Routinely. And the best you can do is a 311 complaint, which feels somewhat dick-ish.
>A lot of the regulations that seem obviously protectionist now really weren't at the time they were implemented.
True. Somewhat analogous to the law of unintended consequences. One potential way to address this would be through the use of sunset provisions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_provision . The downside of using sunset provisions would be the regulatory volatility given our (somewhat) hyperpartisan regulatory environment.
You can usually tell whether a regulation is obviously protectionist, by what the incumbents say about it. Incumbents are basically paid to say exclusively the things that improve their business prospects/competitive position/share prices. It's almost a fiduciary duty. As a consequence, when the a hotel company CEO complains about AirBNB or a medallion owner complains about Uber, you'll notice that they are usually asking for these services to be banned, (or regulated into uncompetitiveness) rather than regulated. In the example cited on the post - the duopolies never asked for the new service to be regulated to their standards - they simply asked to ban it. Even more egregious are moves like the DC City Council repeatedly trying to generate a whole new set of laws just to deal with Uber.
Anytime an incumbent objects to the illegalness or dubious legal position of a new service, you can pretty much bet its because they feel threatened. The fact that it happens to be in the "public interest" (in terms of the service doing something that's against today's law) is merely secondary.
> Regulations follows business as much as business follows regulations.
A lot of real insight in this comment. Regulations and laws are mostly what society agreed was allowable last time we decided to negotiate it. While we (as startups/consumers/businesspeople/engineers) should always strive to do the right thing, we should also remember that in many cases, the "right" thing can be considered illegal (if this wasn't the case, laws would never change to reflect society's current preferences).