That is a fair point.

I will partially counter that a much simpler class of regulations can cover more things in deregulation.

For example, if I just make fraud illegal, if you misrepresent what your evil I don't care what it is under deregulation I can get you. If you are honest about your evil it will be harder (but not impossible!) to sell it.

Deregulation also allows the "small guy" a better chance because to compete, and so with more choice the customer is likely to be more aware of choice.

Again, the above is not complete. There are big holes in this as well. Fundamentally there are always a subset of people who are willing to do evil to get ahead, if they can do their evil while being in the letter of the law they will. Society needs a way to deal with it, and nothing is perfect.

> It is similarly impossible to predict the consequences of deregulation ahead of time yet proponents of deregulation are never held to the total unpredictability of the outcomes of their position.

What's an example of this? The deregulation of airlines? The repeal of Glass-Steagall? I've read a lot of bad takes about the latter's supposed outcomes, but none of them claimed that the outcome was unpredictable.

>The repeal of Glass-Steagall? I've read a lot of bad takes about the latter's supposed outcomes, but none of them claimed that the outcome was unpredictable.

It depends on what you mean by 'outcome.' If by outcome you mean that with GLBA/Glass-Steagall repeal banks began investing in the products they had previously been barred from then sure that was predictable. If we mean second order effects like it's possible contribution to the financial crisis then I'd say that was definitely unpredictable considering economists still can't agree on whether GLBA played a role or not.