[yenwodyah]

So this is basically a result of the DEA forcing eBay to enforce a ban on pill presses for them?

I hate how the government has basically been deputizing internet companies to enforce laws and regulations for them. If the DEA had done this themselves you could appeal it, ask your congressperson for help, or take them to court, but as long as their actions get laundered through a private company, the rights of the affected citizens disappear.

[Animats]

> So this is basically a result of the DEA forcing eBay to enforce a ban on pill presses for them?

Yes. See [1].

Owning a pill press is not currently illegal under Federal law, although some states restrict ownership. Selling one, though, requires registration with the DEA and reporting to whom it was sold. It's kind of like being a gun dealer.

[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ebay-pay-59-million-settle-co...

[vandyswa]

I got the DEA call/email--I let our family lawyer deal with it, and it came to nothing. The crazy thing is that these pill presses, from a 3D printing perspective, are an absolutely trivial object. I'm glad that the drug war is going so well that there only remains the persection of certain shapes of plastic. (irony)

[benoau]

I agree consumers should have better recourse - but its absence is just another way online platforms maximize their profit, and taxpayer-funded policing their platforms for them would only exacerbate that.

[pas]

How is it any good for eBay? They lost someone who made a lot of money for them.

These crazy human hostile implementations of various regulations are a net loss for big businesses.

eBay is doing what nowadays all big fucking corps do, shit on UX and gut punch actual users in the name of compliance.

You got a few hundred dollars from your friend on your Venmo/Revolut/Wise/whatever app and our AML/KYC/CYA/compliance department flagged it? Okay, instantly block your account, tell the users nothing, and demand that they submit paperwork proving who they are, where's the money from, what's the purpose of the transfer, etc... in the most fucked up adversarial byzantine way possible.

The problem is that there's no sane way for these companies to do the good cop / bad cop transition. This is a pure chilling effect on this kind of economic activity.

Banks and these money middlemen ought to be our agents (broker! mediator!) instead they are turned into paranoid bureaucrats resembling the idiots at the NRC (NRC is the nuclear regulatory commission, where the prevailing doctrine is to get risks as low as possible - ALARA, which led to nuclear energy priced out of the fucking market).

[cladari]

The R in ALARA is reasonably.

[pas]

unfortunately it seems NRC commissioners have a very unreasonable view on what's reasonable, because in effect they neutered the whole nuclear power industry.