It looks obvious

“Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” — Albert Einstein

Who do they protect?

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The latest consumer protection, the French version, is so typical - the consumer has to pay more in the name of competition:

Amazon.com may not offer free delivery on books in France, the high court in Versailles has ruled. 
The action, brought in January 2004 by the French Booksellers’ Union (Syndicat de la librairie française), accused Amazon of offering illegal discounts on books and even of selling some books below cost.

The court gave Amazon 10 days to start charging for the delivery of books, which should at least allow the company to maintain the offer through the end-of-year gift-giving season. After that, it must pay a fine of €1,000 (US$1,470) per day that it continues to offer free delivery. It must also pay €100,000 in compensation to the booksellers’ union.

Retail prices, particularly of books, are tightly regulated in France.

One might think that regulations intended to protect the consumer interest, but it is hard to see how paying more is in anyway one’s best interest. Protecting “competition” by regulation leads to decisions that ultimately aren’t the consumer best interest. Worse than that, protecting competition with this type of regulation almost always protect old businesses and prevents new, innovating, businesses from entering to the market with new ideas. On a very low level the French court, and the French regulator, protected the competition by protecting the less efficient businesses from going out of business. However such protection isn’t the consumer best interest since it force inefficiencies at the consumer’s expense.
It is one step forward two step back with france :)
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Written by Rogel

December 14th, 2007 at 1:03 pm

Posted in The Free Market

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