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Comment by palata | Hacker News Reader

The fact that selling such a thing is profitable means that we lack regulations somewhere.

No, it means computing has gotten so %$#@ cheap that it's cheaper to just cobble together cheap parts instead of spending the money to design a purposed device.

That's not mutually exclusive with what I said.

Laws are not here to make money, they are here to decide what kind of society we want. If electronics is too cheap and it creates wastes, I'm of the opinion that we should make it illegal, period.

>The fact that selling such a thing is profitable means that we lack regulations somewhere.

It's the exact opposite. Tobacco is so heavily regulated and taxed that these become profitable. If cigarettes were 3-4$ a pack (which they would be without sin taxes and regulatory overhead), the vape market would come down as well and there's no way these could be profitable. As it is, they retail around $20 and contain the same nicotine as multiple $10 packs of cigarettes.

The regulation was written in time when there were no such devices. Are they "healthier" (less damaging) for the user? If yes, let's tax them lower. Are they less damaging for whole population? Considering the e-waste, I guess not, but it's not up to me to decide. If they aren't, they shouldn't be taxed higher that cigs, if yes, let's change the regulation.

Because they contain so much more nicotine they are way more addicting, way better for the lungs than smoking but still bad for cardiovascular health. Disposables should be illegal for environmental protection reasons, that's a bit unrelated though since these companies can very easily switch to reusable/pod-systems.

We want people to vape rather than smoke tobacco, obviously, it's not a zero-sum issue.

They need to regulate the nicotine content. In Canada its 2% at least. In the US its pretty much 5% juice only.

5% is 50mg/1ml. A cigarette pack has about 25mg. A geek bar has 16ml of juice = 800mg of nicotine = 32 packs of cigarettes.

While that does vaguely gesture at an increased nicotine consumption, it's pretty meaningless without the corresponding consumption rates. My gut suspects the average smoker goes through a pack of cigarettes a lot faster than the typical vaper goes through a rechargeable disposable vape.

Pack a day is considered heavy smoking.

I go through those rechargeable ones in a week. That's pretty common I think for how addictive they are. https://www.reddit.com/r/Vaping/comments/1i9mva3/how_long_do...

Before the disposables were a thing most juices were either 0.3% or 0.6%

This is 100% big tobacco trying to get people hooked

Cigarettes could sell at 3-4$ a pack only because some regulation are in place that enforce the total separation of manufacturing and selling those packs from paying the cost for the societal damages wrt. health, pollution, littering...

There are many possible ways to slice the economical cake.

I'm not sure what your point is here.

1) They don't sell for $3-4 a pack, yet your post seems to imply that the system has failed for cigarettes.

2) For externalities beyond the input cost of a product, the default [natural] condition is for those costs not to be included - one needn't enforce anything. Rather, it requires that someone with power put their thumb on the scale to enforce the inclusion of those costs during a sale[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigouvian_tax

Sorry it was unclear, I was replying specifically to:

> If cigarettes were 3-4$ a pack (which they would be without sin taxes and regulatory overhead),

Trying to show that 3-4$ a pack is not a more "natural" price for cigarettes than the current one, that it is a matter of perspective, and that if one wanted to construct such a natural price all externalities would have to be taken into account.

You can get 10 packs for 20$CAD on reservations in Canada, and that's for decent cigarettes in packaging, the really cheap ones in ziploc bags go even cheaper. 3-4$ a pack is still a decent markup.

> It's the exact opposite. Tobacco is so heavily regulated and taxed that these become profitable.

It's not the opposite at all. Tobacco should disappear just as well.

Juul was very popular and less wasteful (although not perfect of course) as you disposed of the liquid pod rather than the whole device, they were regulated out of existence though. The regulations had loophole/oversight which paved the way for the disposable vape era.

And we have people in the comment section saying we need more regulations.

There are many examples of good and bad regulations, I don't think you can just point at this one and say "see, regulation bad." They were too narrowly focused on cartridge based systems because that's what high school kids were hooked on.

Technically the disposables need FDA approval I think, many just don't have it. Manufacturers, importers, and retailers just don't care. There's a buck to be made and the spice must flow.

I think we need a regulation about trash. To be allowed to sell products containing things like electronic or plastics companies should be forced to collect x amount of this kind of trash.

No no, regulation and government bad, "free market" and "innovation" good. That's the Hacker's credo. Supposedly.

The fact something is profitable (even vices) does not mean it requires regulations, unless the regulation in mind is direct or indirect cap on profit margins?

The missing regulation is some kind of tax or other disincentive against e-waste. I believe the premise of the GP is that such things can only be profitable if we chose to ignore their environmental impact.

I think it's a lack of regulation to prevent negative externalities. Particularly with respect to waste management / product lifecycle.

...and consumption/dispersion/degradation of the finite/rare/precious resources used in the manufacturing process, which we could also factor in, if we wanted to be serious.

E-waste like this exists because it's legal and profitable.

I believe that we as a society don't want e-waste (at least I don't). And when the society does not want something profitable to be done, it sets regulations.

If it wasn't illegal to steal your neighbour's car and sell it, then it would be profitable. But we as a society don't want it to happen.

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