> It's a consumer protection law, what you want is consumers with less or no protections.
Yes, indeed. I don't believe the government should mandate specific protections consumers should receive, because it just serves to reduce consumer options. And this is also why I wish GDPR would have been opt in, giving more options to consumers.
For example, in a world with no government mandated "2 year warranty", some manufacturers would offer a product with "2 year warranty" and some other manufacturers would offer the same product "without warranty", but at a lower price.
Consumers would then be free to chose if they want to pay the cheaper price without warranty or the higher price with the warranty. There are two options for consumers in this world whereas in the world with mandated warranty, only the "higher price with warranty" option is available.
It's the same with GDPR, GDPR compliance has a cost. Some websites have started banning EU IPs for that reason.
Of course, the above assumes that consumers are not mislead and that transactions are voluntary. Therefore, I do think there should be laws against fraud, theft, misrepresentation, etc.
> Yes, indeed. I don't believe the government should mandate specific protections consumers should receive,
What you believe or not it's completely irrelevant.
In my Country consumer protection is in the Constitution, at article 41. [1]
So the government is duty bound to protect the consumers.
Thanks God I was born here and not in olalonde-land.
[1] Art. 41
Private economic enterprise is free.
It may not be carried out against the common good or in a way that may harm public security, liberty, or human dignity.
The law determines appropriate planning and controls so that public and private economic activities may be directed and coordinated towards social ends.
> "some manufacturers would offer a product with "2 year warranty"
Or, realistically, all the manufacturers would offer zero days warranty and only luxury brands would offer life-long warranty to people who can afford their products (e.g. less than 1% of the population).
Example: Apple, which is not exactly a cheap brand, only offers one year warranty in the US, while it's 2 years mandated by the law in EU.
Of course the price premium is not exclusively due to the warranty (probably a good chunk of it is due to import tarifs and taxes). But do we agree that increasing the warranty period costs Apple more? Do we not agree that a business will tend to increase the price of its product when the cost of its product increases?
> Do we agree that increasing the warranty period costs Apple more?
I don't.
On the contrary, I believe they should thank us for encouraging them to make better and more durable products.
If I am spending 12 hundred euros on an electronic device, the least the manufacturer can do is give me the warranty that it won't break on its own before 2 years of usage.
Anyway, Xiaomi makes perfectly valid products at 1/3 of Apple prices.
Maybe it's not the 2-year warranty the issue here...
I also believe that should be opt-in.
> To commit frauds, for example?
Fraud implies an unwilling party, a victim. Not comparable at all to what I'm suggesting.