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wood_spirit 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The buyer doesn’t know which company is responsible and which company’s suppliers are responsible etc. This is why we need legislation and enforcement.

Imagine another scenario. You are my neighbour. I spill some poison on the ground. Your child gets ill. Am I at fault?

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whatever1 21 hours ago | parent [-]

The companies who care will fund 3rd party certification orgs that will check whether the standards are met. They do it already for car safety, responsible raw materials sourcing, recycled content etc.

If it is a feature the customers care about they will market it. But frankly customers just want a better price today.

	▲	cogman10 19 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This only works in competitive markets. A number of markets have few competitors which means it's beyond easy for all the companies to externalize everything. Further, some products have deep supply chains that are easy to mix. Consider copper as an example. A responsible company will want to use recycled copper as much as possible because it's cheaper. However, can anyone realistically validate that none of that copper came from stolen cables or bad mining practices?
	▲	mindslight 19 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		No, you're falling for the efficiency market fallacy. Demand does not always create supply. Markets are not some type of super-classical computer, they are bound by the same stickiness as any NP-hard problem.

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wtfwhateven 19 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How do you suggest this is implemented for mains water supply? Should miles and miles of new water pipe be laid down for every new water supply company on the area and the customer is given a key from Water Corp to turn on their Water Corp supply valve and Water 4 U Corp sends a guy to turn off their valve?

Have you ever even paid a water bill in your life or spent a few seconds thinking about how water is actually supplied?

	▲	whatever1 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		First you need to create a market. Aka have multiple players. The network will be one(many) companies that will be bidding usage to wholesale companies. This(these) network companies will be using the proceedings to improve the network. The wholesale companies will then have their own pricing strategy for the end customer. But they will be paying both the network operators and the local gov. Since water is municipal resource, the players should be paying the muni/city/state for the resource they are utilizing. The proceedings will be used by the muni to maintain the water availability.

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flufluflufluffy 19 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Are we just not teaching The Jungle, Silent Spring, etc… in school anymore?

Also, please enlighten me on where I can shop around for alternative tap water.

I’m being petty, and understand the linked article is more fear-mongery than what the actual situation is, but simply eliminating all regulation is not the solution, as history has shown.

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hobs 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The market isn't free, so it cannot decide - even Adam Smith was pretty freaking clear about this. And I don't mean we need less regulation, I mean companies have complete control over laws, whether or not there's an even playing field, and about their transparency to customers - there's no market at all.

	▲	rvba 21 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Adam Smith's thought is more about 1 000 000 farmers farming the same commodity pototatoes In 2025 winner takes all ans monopolizes all