[tremon]

What’s the difference if it happens with a virtual “thing”?

Certification. Engineering is a protected profession, which means there are preconditions to working in that field and real consequences for failure. Software "engineering" has none of the preconditions.

[squiggleblaz]

You're explaining why there _is_ a difference, but not why their _should be_ a difference.

1. "It is a bad idea to make software developers liable for bugs".

2. "Why? We make engineers liable for physical malfunctions, why not make software engineers liable for software malfunctions?"

3. "Because they are uncertified"

It fails to address the actual point. Is it better that software developers are uncertified? Why not introduce standards?

I guess it's easier to transport software, even running software, across borders today. But even there, one could say, "If Google relocates to Canada, then stuff them - we will drop their packets at the border till they comply with domestic law."

This would be a disruption of the free market, but we already admit that a free market shouldn't exist in house construction. Why should a free market exist in message distribution? The question is always, why is software on this side of the border, and bridges on that side?

(My guess is that it's because few people die when your email is mishandled, but many people could die if bridges fell out of the sky whenever they got bored.)

[faeyanpiraat]

So it seems like it ends up being a moral dilemma:

If a software issue causes for example a data breach, it could cause lots of people to experience mild annoyances, like time wasted on changing passwords, money lost through more effective scamming attempts, etc..

If we compare an actual life lost in an accident with lots of people losing some hours/days from their lives, when can we say they are an equal loss?

1 people = 100 people losing 1 year?

How about if the person is your family member?

This gets waaay too complicated to resolve rationally..