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Being able to sell magic/fraud legally only means that client will be more cautious when buying.

Regulation is not to protect the dumb, it is to promote competition when the majority of consumers are clever enough to not try a service that has not been proven not to be a fraud.

For example, Amazon would never have worked if it was legal to sell book online and not sending them. People would only shop in local shop where they pay for the book they have in their hands and we would be all laughing at the (few) morons that thought they could trust a website. And that works for simpler things too - would you try a different brand of food if it is legal to poison stupid people, would you even try another shop than the one you trust the owner ?




Yep. And you can see this firsthand in Third-world countries, where people are very reluctant to do business with anyone who isn't a close friend or family member for this very reason. The result is an enormous amount of inefficiency.


Spot on. I am very reluctant to try supplements from unknown brands, because I've heard previous scandals (in my country) where the amount of supplement has been way off (both too much and too little), without any serious action taken against them.


'supplements' in general are snake-oil, so I wouldn't worry about it too much...


That's pretty dark/cynical view of the reasons for regulations.


The tone of the comments at the time when I replied was more like "fool and his money are easily parted" and I framed my reply focusing on why not allowing the fool being parted with his money is really good for everyone.

But you are right, I overdid it.




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