Arguably, the consumers that the CPB is protecting is those who are aware of the fees and conditions but still require payday loans, who would be excluded from consideration by the new rules [1], which do not change the interest rate requirements but exclude some customers from eligibility.

If people didn't want these loans, the companies would not exist. If the loans were capable of being serviced at a lower rate, then new companies would form to offer lower fees and charge less interest. The biggest blocker to the latter, ironically, is regulations that aim to prevent new payday loan companies from forming by requiring compliance with industry best practices.

This is a classic example of "regulation made the problem worse, let's add more regulation and see if that fixes it."

[1] https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/CFPB_Proposes_...