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> A company that uses scam tactics to grab money from people has basically admitted that they don’t believe they can succeed in an open marketplace of goods and services.

It's exactly the opposite of that. The fact that scare/scam tactics work is why we add rules to reduce the "openness" of the market. As we find things that companies do that are detrimental to people/society as whole, we add laws and regulations to prevent them from doing that. That is moving _away_ from an open market... to the benefit of society.

Fair enough. I’m using the term colloquially to mean a market in which actors are participating out of free choice and essentially getting what they pay for and what they expect. A market in which consumers are informed and empowered.

Scammers don’t like informed and empowered consumers.

Authoritarians don’t like informed and empowered citizens.

It’s a match-match.

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