Comment by Mordisquitos
11 days ago
You have an odd perception of what constitutes "micro-targetting".
Why apparel specifically? Because apparel is specifically the consumer industry where enormous quantities of unsold product are intentionally destroyed to then be replaced in the market by newly made equivalent articles.
Why was USB-C mandated specifically on Apple devices? Well here's the thing: it wasn't. It was mandated on smartphones in general, and Apple was the only company that specifically tried to fight the regulation because apparently they're special.
Slight correction: it wasn't even for smartphones alone, it was for portable devices in general [0]. As a consequence, all ebook devices like Kindle etc, vapes and other devices had to switch from Micro-USB to USB-C.
[0] https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/eu-common-c...
> As a consequence, all ebook devices like Kindle etc, vapes and other devices had to switch from Micro-USB to USB-C.
Finally, I can charge my book and my cigarette with one cable!
(This statement would have been extremely confusing in the 90s.)
> Because apparel is specifically the consumer industry where enormous quantities of unsold product are intentionally destroyed to then be replaced in the market by newly made equivalent articles
If that's so bad, why is doing so the cheapest option? What makes you think you know better than the market what's wasteful?
What makes you think that what's cost effective (in terms of money, of course) for a given company involves optimally conserving resources?
The obvious counter-example is that polluting is very cost-effective in an unregulated environment there are others - such as this.
> What makes you think that what's cost effective...involves optimally conserving resources
The words "cost" and "effective "perhaps?
> Polluting
Pollution is an economic externality. If I buy a shift and throw it out unworn, I've wasted only my own resources. (I'm paying for the landfill of course.)
You could argue that my wasting that shirt hurt you because I could have instead spent those resources on productive activity that benefits you, and therefore I had a duty to keep it -- but that's just communism with extra steps.
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Regulation is not about knowing better than the market. It is about correcting harmful externalities that markets would not solve on their own.
If disposing of my own shirt in a landfill I pay for is an "externality[y]" justifying state intervention, then every domain of life is subject to top down control. I don't want to live in a society in which resources are allocation in general by edict instead of the market.
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> Because apparel is specifically the consumer industry
Because it is very visible to low information voters who are also red/green voters.
Are you a high-information voter? If so, could you please provide information about any consumer industry that comes even close to the apparel industry in terms of a) ubiquity and market scale and b) destruction of unsold but undamaged items while still producing equally functional equivalents for market?
Is there such a thing as fast-cutlery? Or fast-furniture? Maybe fast-book or fast-vehicle? Fast-whitegood perhaps? I'm at a loss here, I've only heard of fast-fashion.
I feel like there is a lot of waste in packaging specifically. Like way, way more colorful plastic polymers go into the trash way faster making products look appealing on the shelf than from clothing. Don't have the numbers to back it up though.
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> Are you a high-information voter?
Yes I am.
Uh, yes? Food and consumer electronics are larger or similar scale to fashion and undamaged goods for both are landfilled at massive/similar rates to clothing.
Books are the same logic as apparel, "print more than needed, pulp what doesnt sale". Its just much smaller.
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