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> It's simply not economical for many companies to deal with the long tail of false positives, so they don't.

This happens everywhere, not just Big Tech. Even as humans, we try to handle the 99% and ignore the 1%.

I still don’t understand what anyone is proposing - force companies to provide support against their will?




You'd be amazed at how a little regulation right-sizes things in corporations. I work in banking -- there's no grumbling about our regulatory landscape. We just have teams of people who make sure we're compliant, and we get through our audits. So, to answer your question: yes.


Why are you comparing banking regulations to tech support? The former is crucial to trust in money, governance, and societal functioning. Tech support is easily overrun and exploited by bad actors, and the upside for the company is very minimal.


The upside of good support for the company wouldn't be minimal anymore if giant and/or frequent mistakes could get them kicked out of the market, either temporarily or permanently.

What I worry about most is that human support requirements will apply to smaller companies and essentially guarantee supremacy of big tech since no startup would ever be able to disrupt them.


Smaller companies could be exempted under the rules. Start it from 20 employees or so.


The regulation would induce upside for customers.


Yes of course we propose to make them provide support against their will.

Like we force telecom companies to serve rural areas against their will.

Like we force construction companies to use safety gear and have insurance for injuries against their will.

Like we force credit companies to provide mandatory disclosures.

Like we force airlines to do what the people in the control tower tell them to do.

And so on. The entire concept of a corporation is a legal fiction, a privilege granted by the state that enables them to pretend they even have something analogous to free will. Without the consent of the state companies wouldn’t exist at all. Maybe we should do a better job of reminding them of that.


force companies to provide support against their will?

Yes. This happens all the time in all sortes of industries. But people on HN think that tech companies are somehow different and shouldn't be held to the normal rules that other companies have adhered to for decades, generations, and centuries.


> I still don’t understand what anyone is proposing - force companies to provide support against their will?

That's what laws are: forcing people to do things they would otherwise not do.


And kind of the point of laws. If people did them without the law then there wouldn’t be a need for the law in the first place.




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