| There are generally two ways governments hold companies accountable for dangerous products. The first is liability. If they're selling chargers that burn down houses, they get sued, and they don't want to get sued, so they don't want to sell chargers that burn down houses. The second is regulatory requirements. This one is generally worse. The incumbents capture the regulators to e.g. have the law require their technology or raise costs to exclude new entrants. The rules are often inefficient or poorly conceived with bad cost/benefit ratios. And companies making products that are dangerous but nevertheless comply with the rules will point to their checkbox compliance to dodge liability. The problem with the first one is that it doesn't work well against companies outside the jurisdiction, because then you can't sue them, and the importer will be a small entity that just files for bankruptcy if you try to sue them. But the second one has the exact same problem. They sell products that don't comply with the rules; if you try to fine them they're outside the jurisdiction and the only thing in the jurisdiction is a fungible importer that will dissolve if you try to go after them. In that environment the thing that actually works is the third thing. Customers expect some products to be dangerous and rely on product reviews to determine which ones. But this is the thing the second one inhibits, because then overpriced incumbents use their influence over the laws to target any new supplier that tries to establish a trusted brand, which causes the foreign suppliers to have to sell through dozens of unknown labels so they can continue to dissolve them if any of them get prosecuted. And then customers are stuck choosing between the overpriced incumbents and the far cheaper foreign suppliers that may or may not be safe, with many people risking the latter because they have so much lower margins. |