According to author Douglas Coupland, future advancements in technology are predetermined and inevitable. Speaking at an event in Ottawa Wednesday, Coupland suggested we can no more control the course and pace of change, nor its impact on our lives, than stop a phalanx of approaching asteroids from striking the earth.
Why, then, is government trying to catch those asteroids with an old, tattered butterfly net? In one corner of Ottawa, a federal agency is making threats to Netflix. In another, city officials are trying to stop Uber, a disruptive, smartphone technology that is a competitor to the conventional taxi industry. Soon, the competition bureau will review whether two newspapers in the same city can be owned by one company.
In all cases, the authorities say they are acting to protect consumers. But to a growing number of people who have embraced the digital age, the notion that the government needs to defend the public against the marketplace must seem as outdated as the laws which once required a man waving a red flag to walk in front of a horseless carriage.
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If I want to pay $8 per month to watch a bunch of videos, and Netflix wants to sell me that package, it may not be ideal for cable companies, but what business is it of the government? If I want to use my phone to engage someone to drive me somewhere, taxi companies may not like it, but why should city bylaw officers intervene, much less go undercover to catch the two of us in the act? And at a time when information is ubiquitous and marketing opportunities unlimited, how are consumers adversely affected if a couple of increasingly smaller players in a rapidly evolving media landscape join forces?
In a different time, individual consumers had little clout in the marketplace, so government acted on their behalf. But if there is one compelling business lesson of the digital age, it is that the balance of power no longer rests with the seller, wielding control over the tiny, helpless buyer unless the market is regulated.
Thanks to technology, the modern marketplace has become a regulator of its own. With or without the protection of government, consumers are far more informed about the track record of businesses and the quality of specific products than ever before. The Internet allows consumers to bypass traditional intermediaries like travel agents and do their own research on whatever they are thinking about buying, including reading about the experiences of thousands of other consumers.
It used to be that a restaurant or hotel would take extra care if it suspected a customer might be writing a review for an influential newspaper or magazine. Now they must be wary of every single patron, who can report on his or her experience for all the world to see.
The days of government twisting itself in knots to justify convoluted schemes like taxi licences, then, are numbered. (Given that the result was taxi licences being resold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, there was always something imperfect about the system anyway.) Technology is enforcing simpler solutions at the pace and force of a water cannon and government resistance is futile.
But just because change is inevitable doesn’t mean government should abandon its role without due process. Whether the rules around taxi licenses are justified or not, they exist. And the city has a duty to enforce them until they are repealed.
Early in its next term, city council should review taxi laws and determine whether they are appropriate and current (spoiler alert: they’re not). But until then, we can’t expect rules to be scrapped on a moment’s notice every time a new app is released.
Not so long ago, our community debated whether retail businesses should be allowed to open past 6:00 p.m. on weeknights, or open at all on Sundays. Ultimately, after a prolonged debate, the right decision was made. Likewise, Netflix and Uber and a thousand other advancements are rapidly becoming commonplace and government will, sooner or later, accept that its role is obsolete and move out of the way.
The reaction of regulators may seem slow in comparison to the pace of change, but we shouldn’t expect government to move at the speed of early adopters. They’ll put down their butterfly nets someday, even if it’s after the asteroids have hit the planet.
