[Benjammer]

I can never really understand this argument. Why can't we carefully craft regulations to scale in their burden with the company's ability to bear said burden in some way? Scale with revenue or head count numbers? Similar to how income at the lowest bracket isn't taxed, to lessen the burden on people much less able to pay.

[taneq]

Because (a) then you'd end up with things like pacemakers designed by sole operators because their regulatory burden would be that much lower than what a biomedical engineering firm would face, and (b) any such system would be trivial to game anyway.

[jdbernard]

We can, but usually it's the established encumbents who are helping draft the language of the legislation (which is better than politicians with no expertise working alone) and they are not incentived to encourage the kind of regulation you propose.

[eloff]

I like this idea a lot. We don't currently do this, but it would get most of the benefits without most of the downside. Seems like a win.