I think “when you buy a product, be it a game, a house, a car, a computer, a tractor, washer, TV, it should continue to operate without rent-seeking behavior” is the best type of straightforward, uniformly-applicable pattern of regulation one could hope for. Opposing rent-seeking is literally why we have American democracy, which paved the way for French, Brazilian, Canadian, Indian, Mexican and so many other democracies. Kings were the ultimate rent-seekers: every citizen was the product.

It’s not like this is some special case. People make the exact same arguments against John Deere, Tesla, Apple etc. And it’s a major reason many understand we should favor local (or local-capable/open-weight) AI/LLMs. I think “for any product whose support is discontinued, with more than X users, either open source all relevant software and hardware schematics, or provide a binary that will work on the hardware in perpetuity without DRM checks, based on industry” is a miniscule request in the face of any of these industries. I’d say, for instance, weights for discontinued Claude and OpenAI versions would fit. And it’s exactly the type of problem (functioning) democracies are meant for.

You did a summary of conservative ideology. All laws should be abolished so I can do whatever I want, but laws should regulate everything I do not like and the punishment should be harsh.

It is an ideology based in short-term self interest. It is the way toddlers think about the world before growing up.

Laws should help to create a well functioning society where everybody can participate and benefit from it in a fair system. Regulations are part of a functional society.

Digital ownership is not different from anything else. Regulate it correctly or the most powerful people will just take away everything from you.

This is an impressively uncharitable read of GP, and in my view totally uncalled for.

People who "generally" oppose "regulation", in my experience, very often have very good reasons for having adopted that stance, that are rooted in examination (or at least knowledge) of several actually existing regulations. And I would hope we all agree that there are plenty of really bad regulations out there. (If not: I invite you to check out the book https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp... , and consider how this legal state of affairs could come about.)

The entirely unfounded allegation of cronyism ("and the ones where you have friends that work there") is especially absurd. Where the guidelines say

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

this is the exact mechanism for "trampling curiousity" I imagine the site staff have in mind. Why would anyone who can offer you an alternative point of view, want to participate in an environment where responses read like this?

Yes; and to make it extremely politically explosive, I do enjoy observing American politics and seeing each side (there are, brilliantly, two, because there ARE only two sides to every story and they neatly correlate with each other 100%:) massively enlarge the government, apply massive new restrictive regulations, but one side claims they don't do that because of somewhat specific types of massive government regulations and enlargements they do :)

At its best, a government law/regulation/policy is people saying "Ouch, that hurt, let's not do THAT again!", or "Oooh, I like this, this is good for us, let's do more of THAT please!".

At its worst, its self-preserving bureaucracy run rampant.

Any oversimplifying platitude like "I'm against big government!" or "I'm against government regulation!" so tremendously lacks specifics as to be worse than worthless.

And this is an extremely complicated issue which a tiny minority of people care about that'd be ridiculously over-complicated to implement with huge difficulty in tracking and enforcing! But because where we are, it resonates with us, and we on Hacker News feel it's an obvious and easy policy to apply :). You know, unlike the minor issues of war and peace and hunger and poverty and economics and minority rights et cetera :)

100 internet points and tip of a hat to you sir :)

You seem to be arguing that government regulation, on its face, is default-good while the GP seems to be arguing that it is default-bad. I bet if you actually engage with the argument in good faith instead of dismissing your imaginary strawman there could be a good conversation! But no the GP disagrees with you, so is therefore a complete moron, so no discussion will be had I suppose.

> In Comments

> Be kind. Don't be snarky.

> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says

> Please don't post shallow dismissals

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> You're not in favor of adding regulation, except when it comes to issues you understand and care about.

That's not really it.

The main case against regulation is that it shouldn't be used when competition would do it better, which is most of the time. The trouble in this case is that copyright is a government-granted monopoly, which means this isn't one of those times, because competition is being foreclosed by statute. It can't be the thing that saves you in the case where the government is prohibiting it.

To put it another way, the thing that would really reduce regulations is to get rid of copyright, but maybe we want to be pragmatic here and instead of demanding that it be abolished entirely, we just want the prohibition the government is imposing on the users to not be extended through an unconscionable power grab and destroy the rights of First Sale and Fair Use that have always belonged to the customer.

I understand his comment as being against dumb regulation that only ads unnecessary bureaucracy or stops/limits progress. But he would support a regulation for this because it's a violation against the property of the buyer.

Though your point may have some value, your comment comes across as meanspirited and ad hominem.

Also, regulation is not universally supported by knowledgeable consumers. Often quite the opposite, in fact.

I didn't take their comment like that. A brain surgeon doesn't excise a leg tumor the same way as you don't comment on things outside your wheelhouse.

I can't speak for the GP obviously, but lumping together all regulation is a mistake. This would be a situation of having regulation protect our rights rather than limit them. That's a huge distinction and the former isn't particularly common today, more often than not if someone is raising concerns over a new regulation its because the regulation is limiting their rights.

Not really. The issue is that even the basic current rules are not really enforced, because digital is somehow seen as more ephemeral and thus not real ( or at least, that is how it initially started ).

We don't have to have new regulation. We just need to enforced basic existing standards. Buy means buy. Rent means rent. Lease means lease. All have their place. But this is not what is happening now. We have an ecosystem that mischaracterizes not just type the type of sale, but user's rights and obligations under it.

All that is basically fraud. We just don't call it that. We call it innovation.

Wow, you nailed it. "Government waste" and "red tape" are meaningless terms that people make up their own definition for.

What's with the rapid escalation? What was so particularly offensive about GP that you just had to be so publicly insolent?

You’re making an equally nebulous point, as if all govt regulation is good and overreach doesn’t exist by definition or something.

>All the oversight and regulation about everything you don't care and/or know about is big bad government overreach.

I can literally list all the stupid regulation that needs to be removed from my industry. A lot of it is incredibly boneheaded. There's exactly 1 thing I do like, and it was extremely situational and set down in the 90s to avoid a very specific potential failure, and could easily be repealed without issue right now.

I presume, based on the experience in an industry I am very familiar with, that at least 60% of the regulation put on other industries is likewise counter productive and boneheaded. And every now and then when I do a deep dive somewhere I tend to confirm that.