Comment by nine_k

There also is a very simple, uncontrived effect. You put pressure to a thing, the thing is quashed and ceased to exist.

Many things in a society exist on thin margins, not only monetary, but also of attention, free time, care and interest, etc. You put a burden, such as a regulation, saying that people have to either comply or cease the activity, and people just cease it, like in the post. What used to be a piece of flourishing (or festering, depending on your POV) complexity gets reduced to a plain, compliant nothing.

Maybe that was the plan all along.