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Comment by _v7gu | Hacker News Reader

Same reason we don’t cut thieves’ hands

nor should we, because we can't yet regrow chopped off limbs. 100% is clearly excessive, but when the fine is simply money, which corporations can "regrow", then they're just the cost of doing business. Like speeding tickets are just fun tax for car enthusiasts, rather than an avidly deterrent, or how parking tickets are just the cost to pay to park somewhere you're not supposed to, instead of not parking there.

something more incentivizing than a mere fine wants to be levied upon corporations to get them to follow the law, rather than just saving up money to pay an expected fine.

My thought up reply got eaten by an unexpected refresh so here is a shorter version: boy, not complying with the regulations sure paid off for Apple and their Lightning cables huh?

Also speeding becomes reckless driving (with jail time) and parking in dumb places gets your car towed (and possibly damaged) so banking in money to avoid rules isn’t always exactly a winning strategy.

Ah. So non-monetary fines, getting jailed, and getting towed, are additional incentives to not to the behavior? So fines aren't sufficient to disincentivze a behavior? Hmm.

I replied to a post that advocated basically death penalty for firms that such penalties are inhumane. I can’t really put my finger at what you’re insinuating my position is and how you arrived there.

But, putting on my economist hat; I can assure you that exponentially increasing fines will at some point create enough deterrence against such actions. Or better yet, it will be socially optimal for those idiots to keep breaking rules.

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