The invisible hand of the free market will get rid of snake-oil salesmen by... checks notes... magic!
In America the CDC was distributing snake oil in this crisis, their test kits didn't work. As the death toll rises that is going to enter free-marketing lore as a classic example of government regulation contributing to a crisis. There should have been 10 free market solutions and a CDC endorsement for the one they liked best. Depending on how this plays out we may well discover that lighter regulation would have saved literally millions of lives.
Notice that as soon as a crisis hits and the government needs someone to figure out a solution their first and only tool is removing regulation. This is a powerful hint - that regulation is also retarding useful action in non-global-pandemic crisises.
Net result, consumer reports maintained a solid reputation over time and most independents end up selling out at some point. Well that and several billion dollar snake oil companies.
PS: Fill in the blank: The water cooled ultra X get’s an extra 2 FPS ___ . (meh save yor money.) or (which is so amazing!)
They are experts, who can compare results in real cases, learn what's working, and then share their experiences – in their small, real-names, real-reputations communities – with others.
And the tests that have been blocked aren't being developed by fly-by-night hucksters who ride a horse-drawn cart into town, then disappear into the night before their trickery is revealed. They're by existing medical/biotech/scientific giants – who are already supplying the same doctors/hospitals other trusted diagnostics, or supplying the exact same tests around the world with strong track records.
If you think the fake-mattress-reviews issue is a major one, by all means, get a "Federal Mattress Agency" to save the poor consumers. But let doctors/hospitals/scientists develop, and try, new things without months/years of delay on low-risk products.
I'm trying to figure out what it would take for me to feel I'd been cheated in a mattress purchase. What does a fake mattress look like?
A more direct example is the supplement market, but that’s such a dumpster fire I figured a less extreme example was relevant.
This is a given, and doesn't mean it's not worth the tradeoffs. We shouldn't have a system that is always adapted to be ready for global pandemics, because most of the time, we don't have one. If we didn't need to change anything, it probably meant we were making poor tradeoffs in peace time.
In this case, it's not even about falsely marking up poorly understood investment products for extra business, it's people's health.
Any reviewing businesses that are strict with their criteria simply won't get business from device companies, all we've succeeded in doing here is moving the problem up one level.
There is some incentive for medical providers and insurers to use safe and effective treatments (good reputation is good business). For products that are not immediately physically dangerous, perhaps retrospectively evaluating their choices would be similarly effective for outcomes as the current approach of banning things until they are approved.
Do you think that we would have been better off with letting the market itself make more decisions regarding what should stay open during the crisis?
Except they do.
If not for the FDA we would have ramped up testing 6 weeks earlier. Labs were already developing and doing their own tests in January, but the FDA clamped down on them and forced them spend weeks jumping through bureaucratic hoops.[2] The only test approved by the FDA was one made by the CDC, which turned out to not work due to a bad batch of reagents.
The FDA is also the biggest reason why EpiPens cost so much[3], why a drug company can increase the price of Daraprim 50x without worrying about being undercut by competitors[4], and why there is no generic insulin in the US[5] (despite the molecule being off-patent because it was discovered a century ago). These regulations are killing thousands of Americans every year.
1. https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/12240422206653071...
2. https://thedispatch.com/p/timeline-the-regulationsand-regula...
3. https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/29/reverse-voxsplaining-d...
4. https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/24/the-problems-with-gene...
5. https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/04/30/buspirone-shortage-in-...