Comment by glaucon
5 days ago
What makes me laugh (sardonically) is that I would have hoped that, as well as considering what the costs are to the suppliers, the law might also have taken into account the size of the injury being suffered by consumers. And that if that injury was large enough then that problem should override concern the cost to the companies that have chosen to use sharp practices in maintaining their revenue flow.
Maybe you saw something in the quoted text that I didn't but I understood the USD100M to mean the costs that would arise due to companies who are currently utilising these practices stopping those practices. There's not an ongoing cost to those companies unless you call the deprivation to them of the revenue they shouldn't be receiving because their customers no longer wish to buy the service a cost.
> After all, those costs are eventually going to be passed down to consumers
And when they are the consumers will be able to stop buying off those companies, well, I mean, as long as they can cancel their subscription.
> Maybe you saw something in the quoted text that I didn't but I understood the USD100M to mean the costs that would arise due to companies who are currently utilising these practices stopping those practices.
No, Congress put in the hundred million rule to protect honest companies from overly–complicated rules meant to weed out the dishonest. The analysis is intended to force the FTC to consider alternative rules and pick the simplest one that will work.
As you point out, the dishonest companies aren’t going to bother following the rules, so new rules don’t impose any costs on them. Even Congresscritters can understand that.
> I would have hoped that, as well as considering what the costs are to the suppliers, the law might also have taken into account the size of the injury being suffered by consumers…
Yea, there’s an argument to be made in favor of that. You could contact your local Congresscritter and ask them to propose an amendment, but I would first consult the Congressional record to read up on the debate at the time the law was passed. I am sure something like this would have been proposed, and it might be useful to know why the law ended up the way it is. It might just have been simpler to get everyone to agree to a number than to a formula. Eliminating unnecessary complexity is the point, after all. I think this section was last amended in 1980, but I might be wrong…