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Comment by dataflow | Hacker News Reader

You seem to be missing that arbitrators have a financial incentive to side with the company, which pays them? Explained in this video: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49787720

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I wonder how often this is the case. The one time I read the fine print when signing up for a service, it said that I had the right to disagree with the choice of arbiter, and get some national organization to pick a different arbiter independently.

I don't know how common this is, but yeah, this is a bare minimum that one should have with arbitration.

But, many of the members of that organization make their money from various forced arbitration deals, so that doesn't necessarily move the needle back towards the consumer.

This isn't specifically business vs consumer. The problem is ruling against the guy who brings you more business isn't good for getting more business. And you have a related problem with big fish vs big fish (for example, arbitration of union contracts) where you have to appease both sides--go something like 50/50 regardless of merits.

Very clear case, arbitration is fine. Fuzzy case, I would much prefer something that doesn't tip the scales in advance.

Note that the same bias problem exists with home inspectors. Realtors won't like inspectors that find things that kill deals. That one can be solved by hiring your own inspector with no input from the realtor.

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