Laws are important, but too many laws begins to speak about a general decline in intelligence.
Let me take a contrarian position on this. While I agree that in principle less laws are generally better, the way the world works makes it almost systematically impossible to lower the number of laws.
Let’s make a thought experiment; how many products and services were available to a given “middle class” individual in following years:
1500
1800
1900
1950
2000
2025
Now if we take this same breakdown, and modify it to show how many products and services de facto require the time, inclination and resources to evaluate associated “Terms of Service” and “Privacy Policy” documents (and some products have other supplemental legal docs). Not to mention tracking the changes in these legal documents and associated laws (which in some countries might not only be national, but also regional and even local).
Keep in mind that with TOS/PP was limited to software in say the 90s, now it also covered even something as “simple” as a washing machine.
Now also add the UI/UX complexity of managing these services to make them reflect your true preferences (try and look at LinkedIn’s privacy management dashboard or their notifications dashboard).
So perhaps rather talking about regulation, we need to talk about not requiring a legal degree to use a product and using common sense approach to TOS/PP validity (and legal/criminal penalties for those are knowingly contributing to this issue).
Not to mention the fact that “less regulation” polemics are often used in some countries to enable corruption, criminality and worse governance.
Let me take a contrarian position on this. While I agree that in principle less laws are generally better, the way the world works makes it almost systematically impossible to lower the number of laws.
Let’s make a thought experiment; how many products and services were available to a given “middle class” individual in following years:
Now if we take this same breakdown, and modify it to show how many products and services de facto require the time, inclination and resources to evaluate associated “Terms of Service” and “Privacy Policy” documents (and some products have other supplemental legal docs). Not to mention tracking the changes in these legal documents and associated laws (which in some countries might not only be national, but also regional and even local).
Keep in mind that with TOS/PP was limited to software in say the 90s, now it also covered even something as “simple” as a washing machine.
Now also add the UI/UX complexity of managing these services to make them reflect your true preferences (try and look at LinkedIn’s privacy management dashboard or their notifications dashboard).
So perhaps rather talking about regulation, we need to talk about not requiring a legal degree to use a product and using common sense approach to TOS/PP validity (and legal/criminal penalties for those are knowingly contributing to this issue).
Not to mention the fact that “less regulation” polemics are often used in some countries to enable corruption, criminality and worse governance.