Why should the government have oversight over safety? If it's so critical, then the industry can create their own independent entity and safety scheme.
>Why should the government have oversight over safety?
Because the additional cost is worth it when lives are at stake.
Cost doesn't mean just mean money. Government oversight creates significant friction and there needs to be a very good reason to accept that friction into an industry. Risk to human lives is one of the few things where it is sensible to introduce that friction.
Can you help me remember what was the standard for charging small devices until a government took the reins and forced the industry to cooperate? Was it more or less friction for everyone?
Government are there to prevent friction for its citizens, not for faceless entities.
I filled the technical part of a certification to host personal health data for my first company (bunch of ISO certifications plus background checks, authorization to come at my place to take any storage device, including phone and computer, and also a bunch of columns to fill). Friction was strong for like 6 month, and present for two, but our customers never felt it hopefully.
Because it is an externality. Capitalism works when there are property rights. Even educated libertarians admit that that which is not able to be given property rights must be subject to government oversight.
Public safety is an externality. The air and water are externalities.
Private industry can't effectively compete to optimize a cost which is not "priced in". That's the whole point. If you can pollute, damage public safety, et al, it amounts to a free subsidy, you are externalizing costs which should show up in your balance sheet.
It's like people read Ayn Rand, or some cliff notes version of free market capitalism, but don't read any of the deep philosophical economic arguments in the literature, and then parrot slogans around.
