Comment by lmilcin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lmilcin | Hacker News Reader

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It even is sometimes weaponized to help fight competition. For example, by making it expensive to conduct a certain type of business and requiring even higher entry costs (things like certification, licences, etc.) it actually favors large, established businesses.

Case in point: Uber suggesting minimum wage for their workers, some time ago. Think about this, the company refuses to recognize them as their work force but are fine to suggest a minimum wage. As it happens, the minimum wage would put their competition out of business at that time so it must have been seen as favorable for Uber. The competition was not so well funded and so this would be an attrition war at a point in time when Uber was potentially able to win it and wipe all competition out.

This shows that you don't even need corrupt bureaucrats to have regulation steered this or that way by private business.

My favorite is the NY LLC publishing requirement. To start a business you must publish that you started a business for 6 consecutive weeks which costs thousands. Wonder what back door corrupt deal was made on that one.

I can only suspect that this made sense at some point in time when wealthy people started their day with a pipe and a magazine to read.

Points to another issue that there is no active effort to reduce old laws so they just pile up.

Got a better one. Try to buy a car in the USA, directly from a manufacturer.

Which is why there are many states in which you can't buy a Tesla (since they sell directly from the manufacturer).

Thousands?

That one is just an archaic rule, but I registered an LLC in NY for like $200 all in. Services will publish for you in random publications for that cost. Still annoying, but not a huge deal realistically.

What does the law achieve? It seems like such a massive waste of money. Why does it need to be a physical publication when a digital publication is cheaper and can have just as much if not more reach?

It doesn't cost thousands. It's at most $200 or so to publish in two newspapers. Where I'm from people always pick the Jewish Ledger because it's something like $79 for an ad publishing a LLC.

It's a dumb rule regardless, but please don't blow the costs out of proportion.

Based on my reading of O'Henry stories, my guess is that law exists because people were selling stock in scam mining companies with mines in the West back in the late 1800s / early 1900s. If you had to advertise that you were starting a business, then people could look up your company and discover that it is unlikely that your company had $$$ of gold deposits in Colorado.

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