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Re:An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands of Coal Miners by gumby on Tuesday December 18, 2018 @11:02PM (#18712906)
> I can't think of a single instance, from the last 200 years, where money alone has achieved the appropriate constraint of a process, product or industry.

Money upset the mobile phone business which was a lazy cartel controlled by carriers, who functioned as monopsony customers of phone manufacturers. Europe's market was more dynamic than the the US and Japan due to regulation but still the phones weren't amazing. Then about a decade ago Apple blew up not just the design of phones but more importantly IMHO the relationships between the end users, manufacturers, and the carriers.

I cite this as a proof that it can happen but in general I think regulation to manage externalities is underused due to ideology. Yet as a businessperson I don't consider regulation inherently evil -- in fact, for example, a safety reg which applies to everyone doesn't disadvantage any one company.

Re:An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands of Coal Miners by r00fus on Tuesday December 18, 2018 @11:36PM (#18713042)
How did money upset it without tech disruption?
Re:An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands of Coal Miners by gumby on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @12:14AM (#18713212)
It was a tech disruption. NeedMoreTea said a significant disruption requires "regulation and money" and while I agree in the general case, the iPhone is an example that shows that "requires" is overstating it.

An existence proof that it "pure" capitalism can cause positive disruptive change, even if that's a rare case. And I write "pure" in scare quotes because Apple did benefit from a raft of laws and regulations (police, building codes, court system, patents, etc) -- but not to a greater or lesser degree than the other participants in the phone ecosystem.