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Comment by donatj | Hacker News Reader

I disagree 100%, there is a big difference in quality between a haircut from an experienced stylist and your cousin Vinny. People right now go to fancy expensive salons when they could get a $15 haircut.

I think people would certainly pay more for a reliable and stylish haircut even if they could get a bottom barrel haircut from a high schooler. You just pay for the quality of work you want done.

What you call race to the bottom, I as a consumer call fair pricing not controlled by syndicates.

Controlling the market by limiting the job pool to just the people who can already afford the time let alone the licensing fees really just serves to keep people in poverty. How many people could be working right now but can't afford the time and money to get licensed?

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In every industry there are creative people who make more than the average.

This is about policy for a group of nearly 600k people. If there were no 'racket' I think that most people who want to cut hair are capable of stylish and reliable - above the Great Clips standard.

"No regulation" could increase the labor pool a factor of 10x, given the propensity for these businesses to be 100% small $ transactions.

[Editted in response to your edit] Every industry should have competition, but the national average for hair-cuts is near minimum wage. WTF are you smoking? Do you really believe if the minimum was gone there's a chance "fair pricing not controlled by syndicates" would be just above minimum wage? Is the govt minimum wage a "pricing controlled by syndicates"?

Do these businesses really even need to exist? They themselves are a racket. They're just overhead.

Why can't my wife just cut hair out of our kitchen? Here at least it's illegal. I have no doubt she would have steady repeat clientele ready to pay for a good haircut.

I firmly believe the value of something is what someone else is willing to pay, and that artificially inflating the price by limiting supply will always be immoral and monopolistic.

> Do these businesses really even need to exist? They themselves are a racket. They're just overhead.

They exist because people like convenience and ease of discovery.

They don’t “need” to exist. They exist because there’s demand and they’re filling it.

There are already many options from hair stylists operating out of their home. People can already choose one or the other.

People I know already do these home-haircuts as a business. They dont make money because its deregulated and every so mildly illegal, mostly from tax evasion.

Somebody's wife cut your hair in her kitchen and you paid in cash, no taxes. It's tax evasion, quick, let loose 1000s of new tax agents on the population to stop this travesty! Immediately!

I say deregulate everything reasonable, stop trying to nake everything a nanny-society and micro-managing every last bit of compliance, and let the chips fall where they may! Let responsible adults live their lives. People self organise and figure most things out for themselves if you just let them.

If kitchen hairstylists outcompete hair chains, I would be surprised but also not too worried - hardly the end of civilization at risk. But locking people artificially out of jobs and artificially inflating almost all everyday expenses for consumers are pretty big enshittifications, in my opinion.

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