Comment by WalterBright
3 months ago
> How about giving less profit to the shareholders?
Then the shareholders will sell their shares.
> How about making customer support legally mandated
Then you'll have to pay higher prices for the product. Every mandate put on a company costs money and so higher prices are the result.
There is a range between less profit and no profit. As a shareholder, I'd rather have a functional society for all at the cost of a bit less profit, rather than being the richest in a world of ashes.
As a shareholder, you can invest in whatever corporation you like and vote your agenda.
You really are on the side of letting companies steamroll customers throughout this thread. There's what's technically true, and there's the society most of us would prefer to inhabit. I want mine to be less extractive of profits by any means necessary.
Australia has very strong consumer protection laws but international companies still sell products here. They are forced to comply with the regulations and the prices are mostly comparable with other countries. Regulations work.
Multinationals cherish and welcome regulations. They have whole compliance departments for exactly that: obeying regulations.
How’s Australia’s startup scene though? Startups are the hardest hit by regulations.
Fewer startups mean less competition for incumbents. This is how de-facto monopolies appear: through regulating competition out of existence.
Australia's startup scene is doing ok, but the funding model is lacking. There are a few reputable VCs, and very limited government funding. I don't think it's regulations that are cramping Australian startups, I think it's more lack of investment from both private and public sectors. I know many people who are running successful startups in Australia.
I'd argue that having a system of lobbying government and lax rules on political donations would have a much greater effect on stymying competition. It seems that monopolies in the US are very much protected by a lack of regulation on political donations rather than too much regulation.
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