[seanw444]

Our laws are very similar to our medicine. We take a pill that causes a side-effect, which requires a pill to fix that side-effect but causes another side effect... so on.

We start with state interference of the free market in a small way, and it mangles the fair game. And then we "need" laws to "protect" us from issues caused by state interference in the first place.

So sick of it all.

[jpalawaga]

Regulation is a response to bad behaviour, not the cause of it.

We started with a free market. People acted poorly. In came regulation. Specifically: regulation that was not imposed on us as society, but of our own choosing.

Not to say that regulation can't cause issues of it's own. But regulation (believe it or not) is there for a reason, even if imperfect.

Actually, it's quite telling that you confused 'free market' with 'fair game'. Who says a free market is a fair market? Free market doesn't mean fair, it means free. Free to exploit people, to act monopolistically, to abuse your market power and inflict pain. It does not mean fair.

[thfuran]

>Regulation is a response to bad behaviour, not the cause of it.

Regulation is a means to an end. Sometimes the goal is to curb some bad behavior. Sometimes the goal is to give the appearance of doing something (like looking tough on crime). Sometimes the goal is fundamentally corrupt, such as the bans of municipal fiber networks pushed through by incumbent ISPs. Sometimes the regulations even mostly achieve their goal without much in the way of unintended consequences. But it's certainly not as simple as regulations are always an effective response to bad behavior that do not themselves cause bad behavior.

[seanw444]

Leaving it up to what people are willing and capable of doing sounds as fair as can be to me. That's what competition is there for. It also is not perfect, but it is better.

I expect to get dogpiled on Hacker News though. The demographic here has a fondness of rules. We give computers rules. That fondness translates to non-technical fields, for better or for worse. In this case, worse.

[hn_acker]

> Leaving it up to what people are willing and capable of doing sounds as fair as can be to me. That's what competition is there for. It also is not perfect, but it is better.

Is it better? Congress and the FCC has never done much to punish wrongdoing by ISPs [1]. Large ISPs including AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon commit subsidy fraud with impunity. (See the links in my other comment. [2])

And on the issue of fairness, large ISPs [3][4][5] and some government officials [6][7] do their best to prevent broadband subsidixes from reaching small local ISPs. At the very least, the FCC should (and won't, but should) place heavy penalties on large ISPs for their abuses of customers [8]. By heavy penalties, I mean at least 80% of the revenue gained from anti-competitive practices.

[1] https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/22/fcc-adds-a-nutrition-lab...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37949298

[3] https://communitynets.org/content/monopoly-providers-mire-nt...

[4] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/02/15/report-shows-comcast-con...

[5] https://www.techdirt.com/2015/04/16/alec-threatens-to-sue-cr...

[6] https://www.techdirt.com/2021/02/19/new-bill-tries-to-ban-co...

[7] https://www.techdirt.com/2022/04/11/illinois-missouri-and-ne...

[8] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/06/couple-bought-ho...

[thfuran]

>By heavy penalties, I mean at least 80% of the revenue gained from anti-competitive practices.

How is a fine of less than the proceeds a heavy penalty? There needs to be punitive damages or personal liability for the responsible executives, otherwise it's still a profitable business strategy.

[gaganyaan]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

[kstrauser]

I prefer my markets free as in GPL, not free as in BSD. Net Neutrality ensures the freedom of the market itself. Absence of Net Neutrality gives incumbents the freedom to lock competitors out of the market.

Capitalism only works if purchasers can choose between options that are competing on their own merits. Monopolies are the opposite of a free market.

[Spivak]

I like the metaphor, because people try different combinations of meds until they reach a tolerable state that was better than the starting condition.

I think it's an incredibly succinct way of describing how libertarians look to non-libertarians "just let the free immune system decide" to hell with these medical "interventions."

[seanw444]

Libertarians aren't anarchists. Remember that.