Then the shareholders will sell their shares.
> How about making customer support legally mandated
Then you'll have to pay higher prices for the product. Every mandate put on a company costs money and so higher prices are the result.
How’s Australia’s startup scene though? Startups are the hardest hit by regulations.
Fewer startups mean less competition for incumbents. This is how de-facto monopolies appear: through regulating competition out of existence.
I'd argue that having a system of lobbying government and lax rules on political donations would have a much greater effect on stymying competition. It seems that monopolies in the US are very much protected by a lack of regulation on political donations rather than too much regulation.
Interesting. My belief is that regulations are the most harmful since they raise barriers to startup competition and thus protect monopolies (since startups, due to their hunger, are the most important source of competition in a market - incumbents usually end up in monopolies and cartels instead). We're seeing that here in the EU every day.
But let's explore your point: how exactly do you think lobbying and donations are stymying competition? What's the mechanism at work?
When contracts are awarded to companies based on lobbying and donations it stymies competition.
The following quote is from the report linked at [1]. It's worth reading the entirety of that report.
"the growing politicisation of public service, exemplified by political appointments to government bodies (Griffiths et al. 2022), may spill over into the contract market. Links between politics, donations, and contracts may negatively impact competition and firm entry".
[1]: https://e61.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Political-Economy-...
Of course a less corrupt government could help here, like the x-prize helped SpaceX and electric car subsidies helped Tesla. But that's too much to ask from politicians of most countries.
To actually prevent startups competing and disrupting the market, I maintain that regulations are much more effective: they will prevent entrepreneurs from even thinking of entering and competing highly regulated domains. See the three canonical examples (health care, education and housing) where high prices and scarcity are the name of the game.
Ideally, regulations can promote startups and overall market competition. We do see that ideal in some Australian regulations (and I would guess in most countries) but regulations are decided by the government, and that means that their enforcement (or lack thereof) and intent is often pro-incumbent.
I still maintain that regulations on political lobbying and donations would go a long way to open up the playing field for startups. Unfortunately, I don't see any evidence of any political party in any country doing more than pay lip service to actually doing this.