
Regulating Technology - kkm
https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2020/7/23/regulating-technology
======
timsneath
The challenges for regulation are two-fold, in my opinion:

1\. It just doesn't work. Legal and regulatory solutions are too slow and
poorly designed to be effective, see for example the EU browser consent decree
applied to Internet Explorer. IE didn't fail because Microsoft was forced to
offer a choice of browser; it stumbled because of other nimbler competitors
(particularly Chrome) that were able to innovate despite Microsoft's
historical success. Similarly, Windows' monopoly of the 2000s was nothing like
as entrenched as a business like oil: the dominant player is always at risk
from technological shifts (e.g. browser-based apps) that render old advantages
(Win32) less profound.

2\. The marketplace is global. Heavy regulation of US or EU companies is a
competitive disadvantage when Chinese companies operate in a very different
dynamic. The US could hypothetically force the dismantling of Facebook into
its constituent products or the EU could add stricter rules on how it could
monetize its services, but that just plays to the advantages of Tiktok and
other companies that they have even less control over. It's unclear that this
is in the interests of America or Europe.

[Disclosure: I work for Google, but it's Sunday and I don't speak for them;
I'm just another muggle posting on the internet.]

~~~
dwaltrip
> 1\. It just doesn't work.

* Unleaded gasoline

* Earthquake-proof building codes

* Air pollution ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_of_1963#Effects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_of_1963#Effects))

These are just a few that I quickly came up with off the top of my head.
Obviously, not all regulation works. But it is so incredibly false to say
there doesn't exist effective regulation that has made our lives much better.

~~~
lebuffon
From the top of another head: Banning DDT, Removing Freon from AC systems,
mandatory seat-belts and airbags in cars, Residential ground fault detection
outlets, Electricity system codes, Gas line codes, Building safety codes ...

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lifeisstillgood
>>> Today it might have 100x that. So, how many compliance people will Google
have in five years?

Compliance goes hand in glove with regulatory reporting. Reporting to
regulators _should_ be a marginal cost thing - if the data internally is same,
well managed and fully auditable in an automated fashion.

Doing this in finance is something the new challenger banks (ie monzo built
about five years ago by ten coders and now has a million UK accounts) - this
is something they can have one compliance person because all their systems are
new and written with compliance in mind.

Doing this for most major banks is next to impossible. It would rewriting
everything (#)

(#) Actuallly i would say this is a good strategic plan for most major banks.
Might not be able to persuade the board but still.

~~~
anon98356
These challenger banks are also currently operating in relative niches. Yes
Monzo has a million bank accounts, but in terms of their product offering, it
isn't close to the breadth of your traditional "High Street" bank. As their
product offering expands, their compliance requirements will become a lot more
complex, and will lead to more compliance personnel being hired. They have
also yet to experience a massive overhaul to the compliance requirements of
their existing systems. I'm sure they are better placed to handle it than a
traditional bank but it won't be easy.

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Mindwipe
I've seen this piece a few times, and it's broadly good, but I think it
glosses over the fact that just because politicians want regulation or try to
pass regulation does not mean it actually happens.

As a good example, we're now at the 10th anniversary of the original Digital
Economy Act in the UK, the legislation that was going to disconnect persistent
pirates from the internet and send out warning letters. This legislation
passed. There was much writing at the time about how this was the end of the
open internet, and from politicians about how this was the end of the wild
west internet.

And yet, ten years later, not a single action has ever been undertaken under
those provisions. No letters were sent. No disconnections ever happened. And
that's because politicians ignored the complexity, declared something must be
done and passed law that didn't actually parse into any real world actions.
Primarily it was just completely barmy costs wise for rights owners to send
letters, so they didn't and the regulator just quietly forgot about it after
several consultations.

Much of this regulation feels very similar. Laws may be passed, but the vast
majority of them will never result in any changes because frankly the quality
of lawmaking in most jurisdictions is extremely poor. One or two bits
certainly will, but most of it will fail badly.

Evans sets out the UK's Online Harms act as an example, but the Online Harms
regulation is doomed for one simple reason - everyone and their dog in
politics and lobbying keeps trying to project their problems on to it as
something that will be solved. It's suddenly got to do a million things, while
not having any resource to do so. It will inevitably collapse under it's own
weight because nobody involved is brave enough to say it's scope is already
too big to work.

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indymike
Right now there are three huge risks in regulating tech:

1\. Slowing innovation 2\. Creating monopolies 3\. Crippling entire segments
of the tech industry

The last chart is the most important: the cost of compliance affects small
businesses, including startups much more than large companies.

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lifeisstillgood
Can I veer horribly into my favourite tangent - I love the presentation style,
the look-and-feel. It's a blog version of what he did at A18Z - a sort of
sophisticated corporate but with the look of something that could be knocked
up from Markdown.

I could steal the CSS, but that's is only 20% of the battle - getting graphs
that match the snazz, getting everything just right, but with this off handed
vibe.

As I get older this stuff matters.

~~~
klelatti
Interesting but I found the opposite. Font a bit small, grey on grey hard to
read and no links whatsoever! (Why not if you are writing for the web?) No
strong personality comes across - and I like most of what Ben does. I find it
actually visually less engaging than a lot of corporate blogs.

~~~
amw-zero
Are you reading on desktop or mobile? I’m asking because I’m setting up a blog
myself, and the font I’m using looks a bit small. I’m curious what you think a
good font size is in general.

~~~
arantius
[https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/16-pixels-body-
copy...](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/16-pixels-body-copy-
anything-less-costly-mistake/)

"16px" is a very good font size. I.e. don't do anything, just let the browser
use its default.

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sixhobbits
I don't understand the Tech Regulation chart [0]. What does the y-axis
represent?

[0] [https://images.squarespace-
cdn.com/content/v1/50363cf324ac8e...](https://images.squarespace-
cdn.com/content/v1/50363cf324ac8e905e7df861/1595522011184-I19EHYNRIQ555ZPMZH5V/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kNvT88LknE-K9M4pGNO0Iqd7gQa3H78H3Y0txjaiv_0fDoOvxcdMmMKkDsyUqMSsMWxHk725yiiHCCLfrh8O1z5QPOohDIaIeljMHgDF5CVlOqpeNLcJ80NK65_fV7S1UbeDbaZv1s3QfpIA4TYnL5Qao8BosUKjCVjCf8TKewJIH3bqxw7fF48mhrq5Ulr0Hg/2020+Shoulders+of+Giants+1.1.088.png?format=2500w)

~~~
sradman
_RegData: A numerical database on industry‐specific regulations for all United
States industries and federal regulations_ [1]

[1]
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/rego.12107](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/rego.12107)

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commandlinefan
> why your fellow-citizens didn’t vote the right way.

I'm a little concerned by the implication that regulating tech should focus on
making sure that people vote "the right way".

~~~
aspenmayer
Whoa, I don’t see this in OP post. Perhaps a political motivation was edited
out to make their argument appear technically grounded when it has ideological
underpinnings?

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pvijeh
Have there been many regulatory success stories? I can't think of many

~~~
arrosenberg
Clean air, clean water, seatbelts, no wild economic swings from 1932 until
1986, meat packing plant sanitation, coal mine safety, nuclear power safety,
OSHA, the National Park system, air traffic control, port authority - I could
go on.

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elvicherrera
I don’t think it can be regulated. I believe it will develop into a black
market (dark web). Most regulations in the American industry are usually for
just profit or are crippling. Its hard to imagine internet regulation going
well.

