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I don't take issue with finding common ground, or revising regulation. I will even acknowledge that regulations are slower to change than private actors are at innovating. Which is a problem. I agree with you that grey markets can show an inherent problem with a regulatory regime and should be viewed as providing useful information. That being said, people will always break the law, that doesn't, by itself mean there should be no law, the question is what is the right balance given the competing objectives. But I think your examples are excellent. Regulation can definitely go to far, have unintended consequences, and create real social harm. The problem is that what is ok changes over time; right now we are comfortable with using cadavers for research, but society was not at the time due to certain beliefs in place. Perhaps we will have a similar change with stem cell research in the future such that some of the current restrictions will seem similarly antiquated. But to say that both were inherently irrational is not a fair reading of facts or history. My point is that its good to debate what regulation is beneficial and revisit the debate regularly. There will always be a tension here, regulation to protect social interests, and freedom to allow individual commerce, and that is ok, society should always reevaluate its structure as should any organization. I am merely reacting against the impulse to eliminate ALL regulations or say that business models that ignore relevant regulations are valid and superior. For the record, I am actually a big fan of AirBnB, and use it regularly. I support their mission, I just think we have to be honest about the sources of their success, a part of which is a unique, better product, but a part of which is due to regulatory arbitrage. If we are not honest, we cant learn from what they have done and replicate it in other sectors. If my company takes the same approach in health care, I would go to jail, so why should we encourage this mind set for others reading hacker news? |