[jkestner]

I’m in favor of regulation, but that’s not happening now for the same reason that we have the problem in the first place. We’re all tied up together in capitalism, and anything that slows the acceleration of growth that our retirement funds require is not going to fly. If it’s going to happen, it’s because enough people have been excluded from the rewards of the system (we’re getting there).

Easy to nay-say, though. To me, a solution starts with spreading those values that make it possible for _consumers_ to stop sliding down the growth-over-everything slope. Mittelstands, shinise, Patagonia, yada yada. Can you as an entrepreneur make a sustainable business that isn’t just for well-off conscious consumers? What’s the product where longevity is inextricable from the core feature set, not just a trade-off with cost?

Right-to-repair is a decent example of where regulation has enough support across the ideological spectrum to get a foot in the door. It would be cool if a company who made profit on service now decides it doesn’t want to compete on service and instead takes more profit upfront with a higher-quality product. Forcing USB-C on phones feels like a small thing to me, but if it sets a precedent where interfaces are standardized for sustainability, that could be amazing. (No, I’m not worried about governments slowing progress. Locked ecosystems are doing just fine at that.)