> It comes down to trust - as soon as one of these companies did abuse their position to do something widely evil, the market consequences would be dire...
HAHAHAHAHA.
No.
Look at Nestle/Coca Cola/Pepsi sucking the earth dry of precious driking water.
Or the fallout for bankers over the 2008 recession.
Or VW.
Or Equifax making merry with your social security number.
Or Deepwater horizon.
Or Cambridge Analytica.
Or... you get the point.
I'd argue the market has precious few fucks to give about outright evil deeds. There are countless examples of corporations pillaging and raping the earth for short term gains, and the market thanks them for it.
Free market efficiency is true for only a very narrow range of operating parameters, and regulations are very much needed for tackling th ebig picture.
The bottomline being, given a fuzzy outline of the line in the sand, I'd still rather the government shoot for it. If they fall short by too much, we'll know soon enough because symptoms will persist. If they go too FAR, well, that's perhaps even better because I'd rather the default stance on new things be conservative skepticism and caution, and then we slowly allow more things once we deem them acceptable.
