[john01dav]

There is a lot of merit to this view, but there is also a major problem: rules like this make it substantially harder to start a new business due to increasing overhead and complexity, which is bad for everyone long term. Such comparatively more complex and burdensome regulation is why so many (but not all) startups go to America or Israel instead of Europe.

To address this I prefer ultra low friction and ultra low cost regulations over complex and performative schemes. For example, GDPR requires the appointment of a "data protection officer" in some cases, which is mostly just an extra fee for small companies. Instead, it should only regulate the rights (such as to be forgotton, etc.). Appointing such an officer is mostly performative.

[jasomill]

The most important thing in my view is that both parties are aware of their rights and responsibilities. If the plain text of the warranty agreement specifies replacement, replacement should be required. If the business doesn't want to assume the risk, that's fine, but the warranty should then clearly and explicitly stipulate replacement or refund at the retailer's discretion, in such a way that an average consumer would be expected to see and understand this (i.e., no "replacement" in large, friendly letters and "or refund" buried in fine print or legalese, or leaving out specific details to be filled in by default provisions when such provisions favor the retailer).

[hananova]

I'll take fewer startups if the tradeoff is actual consumer and human rights. I don't even think it's a morally debatable tradeoff.

[john01dav]

I don't think that it's that simple. I'm advocating for regulations to consider the burden on small businesses and aggressively minimize it.

Another example than the GDPR example that I previously gave is beneficial owner registration. The US government tried to pass a law requiring every corporate entity to state who the beneficial owners are, to reduce tax evasion. In principle, this sounds great, but the vast majority of corporate entities are small businesses with natural persons owners, so that beneficial owner is already obvious. So, they should have added such an exception to filing requirements. Even better would be to just work with states to put beneficial owner fields on the existing state incorporation forms, instead of creating a new form, that are optional to fill in when the owner is a natural person. That way, we reduce tax evasion with the better data, but we aren't relying on a random electrician in Ohio or a tech nerd startup founder in California to be aware of these requirements. While one form isn't a big deal on its own, the whole system is like this, and it adds up.