I'm not assuming anything. I'm saying that he's misunderstanding the purpose and value of class actions based on the content of his comment, and am not impressed by attempts at arguments from authority. Appellate lawyer or not, his points were not good ones.

I mean, the very article he's commenting on directly refutes his points about class actions resulting in less compensation for consumers and only or largely benefiting lawyers.

It's not an argument from authority. It's an attempt to sidestep the breaking things down into basic parts for non-technical discussion, by pointing out that the person you responded to is capable of having a technical discussion on the subject.

You make some statements here that are arguable - for example, that 'class actions are an ideal instrument for redress of harm where the harm to any individual is small, but the harm is widespread, meaning that a company is cheating or hurting many people but it's not worth any one individual's effort or expense to sue them.'

That's not always true. Legislation or regulatory oversight are often better solutions as they occur faster and have broader implications. You even acknowledge that later in your comment as you agree that regulation is better.

I don't think anybody in the thread is arguing that individual arbitration is a better method. The question is whether class-action suits is the final method or if we should be considering different regulatory controls.

Yes, I noted that regulation or legislation is better, but we don't have them now. Under the current system, class actions are valuable instruments for consumers.

No one, myself included, is saying class actions should be "the final method", just that it's wrong to argue against them when they are currently generally the only method available to consumers for certain kinds of harm. I'd be the first to support robust regulatory protections that protect consumers to the point that they render class actions redundant, but sadly we don't live in that world.

You don't live in that country. Many other countries do indeed have much stronger consumer protections. Regulatory ministries in other nations often have nearly plenipotentiary authority in their area of regulation. Once your business is noted as doing something anti-social, you can expect increasing interest from them, and they have full authority to just inspect the books and premises of your business and see what you're up to, and decide how they want to react to it.

Class actions are a poor substitute for good regulation. They are the bare minimum, or somewhat less than the bare minimum.