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Comment by Groxx | Hacker News Reader

Seems like you don't have to rule it out completely? "You might also like this show" is rather different than YouTube's "OMFG SHORTS WATCH THEM NOW" experience. Even if the line is fuzzy, I think many can agree some things are closer than others, and that's enough for some laws (there are plenty of other not-perfectly-testable laws out there as counterexamples).

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> Seems like you don't have to rule it out completely?

This is what I was talking about in the second half of my comment: Every time I bring up the fact that these proposals would be overbearing, people start brainstorming infinite carve outs and exceptions that would exempt the products they use, but harm the products they don’t want other people using.

If these laws hit the books they’re not going to be neatly shaped to avoid the things you like and only impact the things you don’t.

That seems inevitable for laws that try to address private behavior, yes. It'll waffle around and strike randomly as it gets tested more and more in court to narrow the definition, and that gradually causes a chilling effect around the whole concept. The only real consideration worth having is "will things be better after", not "will my life be unchanged".

While this is true in principle, my understanding is that the failure to carefully deliniate ahead of time, was why prohibition in the USA ended up being "all alcohol" rather than "just liquor".

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