Comment by pcthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pcthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

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> On one hand, if a business generating almost $500M in revenue per year[1] is doing something illegal, it shouldn't be allowed to operate. Simple as that. If it is allowed to operate, then it should have access to the same payment methods as any other business

I suspect if all businesses were held to this standard perfectly, there would be no businesses operating that generated $500M in revenue per year. Every business at that scale is doing something illegal somewhere. Not saying I agree with the state of things, but it seems businesses have decided occasional penalties for getting caught things illegal in jurisdictions that are capable of compelling them to pay the fine, are part of doing business.

> I suspect if all businesses were held to this standard perfectly, there would be no businesses operating that generated $500M in revenue per year.

If this standard were held perfectly and everyone knew it would be applied to them, businesses wanting to generate more revenue would adapt accordingly. Obviously violators of this standard exist today _because_ this standard is not enforced (i.e. laws without any "teeth" are not sufficiently motivating).

“ If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”

If this standard was applied perfectly, every company under the threshold would be trying to shut its large competitors down with moles to sabotage them with a single documented illegal act.

If this standard was applied perfectly, large competitors would actually follow the laws... just like large businesses do today with laws that are actually enforced (MUCH more so than small businesses especially)... and why do you think they wouldn't be the ones trying to sabotage the upstart competitors? That's historically much more likely (although I'm sure it would in fact happen in both directions).

Moreover, is that bad? Is punishing people when they do something illegal bad?

What did Visa do that was illegal?

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