[pron]

Do you think that without regulation there will be less barriers for the small players? Because I can assure you that the Robber Barons made sure there were no small players left. They either bought them out or forcefully drove them out of business. As much as regulation places a burden on the small guys, if you let the big guys alone at it, they will make it much harder. This isn't theoretical; that's how it actually happened (and if the US 100 years ago is too far back for you, look at Russia in the past 20 years).

[smsm42]

Russia in the past 20 years is an example of a libertarian no-regulation state? Are you kidding me? Russia is a corruptocrat authoritarian state with no independent courts, virtually no independent media outside of internet, no rule of law or personal protection of property and person, official state censorship, and is corrupt to the core, with rampant extortion and bribery on every level of the government. And yes, plenty of invasive regulation that is used exactly to extort these bribes. Latest state initiative, recently introduced into Duma, is mandatory registration with the state of every internet site and mandatory preservation of users' activity logs by every site operator: http://lenta.ru/news/2014/02/28/data/

I'm sorry, did you just mention Russia as an example of state with no regulation? Ignorant, joking or trolling?