[realreality]

Plumbers make excellent money because regulations require licensed plumbers to do the work, and plumbing unions have a financial interest in limiting the number of plumbers.

But anybody can do plumbing. It’s not rocket science.

[trollbridge]

You can hire a non-union plumber. There isn’t usually much of a price difference. Where I live, you can easily find a non-licenced plumber (called “moonlighting”, usually done by apprentices of licenced plumbers). A lot of people prefer not to since you’re on your own if something goes wrong.

Plumbing requires skill, particularly for difficult jobs, and also requires advanced equipment to do such a job in a reasonable amount of time, such as special cameras to inspect a septic tank or drain line without having to actually cut into it.

[realreality]

Where I live, permits are only given to licensed plumbers, and all work on plumbing requires a permit (though I’m sure many people ignore the rule).

[stego-tech]

> regulations require licensed plumbers to do the work

Regulations come about because of repeated failures that end up harming the public. Regulations aren’t a dirty word, and aren’t obstacles to be “disrupted” in most cases.

> plumbing unions have a financial interest in limiting the number of plumbers

Golly gee, it’s almost as if - because we live in a society where everyone must work in order to survive - that skilled professionals have a vested interest in ensuring only qualified candidates may join their ranks, to make it harder to depress wages below subsistence levels (the default behavior of unregulated capital).

> But anybody can do plumbing. It’s not rocket science.

Oh wow, I had no idea I was qualified to design sewage infrastructure for my township just because I plumbed my Amazon bidet into the cold water line! Sure glad there’s no regulations stopping me from becoming a licensed plumber since apparently that’s all it takes to succeed!

Sarcasm aside, your argument holds about as much substance as artificial sweetener: it sounds informed and wise, but anyone with substantial experience in reality and collaborating with other people knows that all you’re spewing is ignorance of the larger systems at work and their interplay.

[dragonwriter]

> Regulations come about because of repeated failures that end up harming the public.

Sometimes, but see also the concepts of “iron triangles” and “regulatory capture”.

[stego-tech]

You’re not wrong (examples include the US FCC, ZA’s Telekom, ye olde Standard Oil, vertical integrations…the list goes on, and even includes modern cloud services and AI tools, since the regulations they champion are often intended to block competitors with onerous compliance requirements), but in the context of the person I was replying to, they used “regulation” very much in the same context Uber/AirBnB and the SV Libertarian ilk decry “regulations”.

Regulations aren’t a binary (exclusively good or exclusively bad), yet so many of the HN cohort have drank the “exclusively bad and everyone can be trusted to make good decisions forever” koolaid that seeks to dismantle regulations wholesale.

[realreality]

You’re wasting your time fighting a straw man. I never said all regulations are bad.

The question was why plumbers are expensive. I assert that it’s not because plumbing is especially difficult.

[stego-tech]

> You’re wasting your time fighting a straw man.

Smartest thing you’ve said all day. Thanks for reminding me that trying to convince someone of something when they cannot be bothered to do research beyond first order impacts is a waste of my time.

[realreality]

Designing sewage infrastructure isn’t rocket science, either. If citizens in your town needed to do it, they could figure it out, regardless of their credentials.

Sometimes regulations come about to protect the public. Often, they’re enacted to protect the profits of insurance companies, banks, and other influential industries. Don’t be naive about “the systems at work and their interplay”.