[ProAm]

It depends, to cut hair its no biggie, if you are dying/treating hair with chemicals than can burn the crap out of your skin I can easily see why this is required. We are litigious in the US, this is the cost of doing business.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

> It depends, to cut hair its no biggie

It's a little more dangerous than you might immediately think. You're working with sharp blades and hot objects.

Edit: Oh, apparently, there's a serious risk of disease transmission. I hadn't considered that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2549477

[dmix]

Couldn't a private trusted 3rd-party company provide certification to verify my barber went to school for x or knows what he is doing?

Why does the government need to charge outrageous fees under serious threat if they dont'? (Honest question)

The concepts of trust in x organization is much clearer today thanks to the internet.

[moonchrome]

>Couldn't a private trusted 3rd-party company provide certification to verify my barber went to school for x or knows what he is doing?

This is basically solved by franchising, but that also adds cost to the producer.

But whatever model you chose it puts the responsibility of informing yourself about the safety of your options on the consumer.

People like when their choices are "safe by default" so they like regulation, even if it doesn't accomplish what it states as long as it appears to be effective it's going to be supported. I can't really decide if that's bad or not, in most cases the safety will be there anyway and if it inspires the consumer confidence it allows the economy to function more efficiently.

[anigbrowl]

Government isn't charging outrageous fees. The outrageously expensive tuition is usually provided by a private party, not the state.

[nhaehnle]

Actually, it is often not the government that charges outrageous fees. Very often, a system is in place where you need to get a license from a private provider, and the private providers of licenses charge outrageous fees.

Incidentally, this explains how many of these certification rules are established in the first place: the certifiers lobby for it, because it brings them profits. (I still believe that the majority of certification rules happen because somebody messed up, which led to calls for stricter regulation.)

[thrownaway122]

The government is the trusted 3rd party.

They price gouge because it turns out that they have a monopoly. The private company would also price gouge because they would also be a monopoly - only you would not be able to lobby the private company and vote for a different one...

[logicchains]

>The private company would also price gouge because they would also be a monopoly - only you would not be able to lobby the private company and vote for a different one...

They needn't necessarily be a monopoly; there's nothing stopping multiple certification companies coexisting. Providing certification is not a natural monopoly.

[anigbrowl]

Consumers don't know which certification is worth what. If you run a business you're always getting calls from bullshit consumer certification companies trying to extract money from you by playing on your anxiety about which recommendations consumers trust.

[dmix]

Competing with the government who can put the non-accredited businesses in question out of business or fine them a large amount of money is not fair competition for any private company... so that naturally leads to a monopoly as the OP points out.

[thrownaway122]

See my other post.

[wwwtyro]

> The private company would also price gouge because they would also be a monopoly

Why would they also be a monopoly?

[thrownaway122]

> Why would they also be a monopoly?

Because otherwise there would be a proliferation of licensing companies. This would lead to competition on price (good!) but also on standards/easier certification (bad?). Customer confusion also becomes an issue here - do you really want to have to research which licensing bodies have acceptable standards as well as which providers have good prices and results before everytime you cut your hair?

I think that the ideal option is that the licensing is run by a not for profit that has the government on its board but which is run at arms length.

[InclinedPlane]

And? Do you know how much it costs to become a food handler? Not thousands of dollars and years worth of college.

[colordrops]

That's still not years and thousands of dollars of training though.

[sago]

If the issue was litigiousness, we could require people to carry insurance. Oh wait, we do that too. So, what was the licensing for again?