[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.