Some rules seem to have an element of “cost of compliance” that relies on being able to predict the future, in a way that even specialists have little hope of doing. Sometimes, this leads to a risk-taker-enriched (aka asshole-filtered) gray zone surrounding a well of value which may-or-may-not have been poisoned (something of a Shroedinger’s Well?).
If the gray zone is valuable, then for a while, the market might heavily favor gray-area violators of this type. But occasionally, one of these zones suddenly transforms into a trap for gray-area violators at all levels of competence. At least in theory, I could see some law-makers deploying this variety of illegible rules on purpose, to use that as a wasp-trap for sneaky, competent boundary-pushers. I have very little idea of whether this actually happens on-purpose much, and a lot of things that might initially look like this probably turn out to be “you gotta know a guy” in retrospect.
Some examples I can think of that might fit this pattern...
The question of exactly which financial regulations would be deemed “applicable to Bitcoin” was going to have to be done largely in retrospect, and I think even specialists largely couldn’t make reliable predictions about this. On a related note, I know a story where a pre-blockchain gold-backed online currency tried to get a permit and was prohibited, due to regulators deciding that they didn’t fall into the relevant reference class. This company was later penalized into bankruptcy for operating without that permit, when a later court ruling decided that they did fall into that reference class.
More broadly, the question of “will rules around patents will be leveraged against you” seems to sometimes fall near this gray-zone. That one’s dampening profile is a bit weirder and complicated, though. The dampening-effect there seems to be disproportionately borne by the medium- to well-funded. It seems to reward obscurity, because small corporations are usually not worth going after about patent violations. Medium-sized ones might be, and often settle out of court to avoid a lawsuit, making it profitable to go after them; I would guess that they’re the ones penalized the worst by this, but I’m not certain. Top corporations probably fall somewhere in-between; on the one hand, they tend to have good lawyers (repelling frivolous lawsuits), but on the other hand, they might stand to lose a very large sum in court.
Possibly anything where court rulings being made on the same case seem to see-saw back-and-forth as it goes up levels.
Some rules seem to have an element of “cost of compliance” that relies on being able to predict the future, in a way that even specialists have little hope of doing. Sometimes, this leads to a risk-taker-enriched (aka asshole-filtered) gray zone surrounding a well of value which may-or-may-not have been poisoned (something of a Shroedinger’s Well?).
If the gray zone is valuable, then for a while, the market might heavily favor gray-area violators of this type. But occasionally, one of these zones suddenly transforms into a trap for gray-area violators at all levels of competence. At least in theory, I could see some law-makers deploying this variety of illegible rules on purpose, to use that as a wasp-trap for sneaky, competent boundary-pushers. I have very little idea of whether this actually happens on-purpose much, and a lot of things that might initially look like this probably turn out to be “you gotta know a guy” in retrospect.
Some examples I can think of that might fit this pattern...
The question of exactly which financial regulations would be deemed “applicable to Bitcoin” was going to have to be done largely in retrospect, and I think even specialists largely couldn’t make reliable predictions about this. On a related note, I know a story where a pre-blockchain gold-backed online currency tried to get a permit and was prohibited, due to regulators deciding that they didn’t fall into the relevant reference class. This company was later penalized into bankruptcy for operating without that permit, when a later court ruling decided that they did fall into that reference class.
More broadly, the question of “will rules around patents will be leveraged against you” seems to sometimes fall near this gray-zone. That one’s dampening profile is a bit weirder and complicated, though. The dampening-effect there seems to be disproportionately borne by the medium- to well-funded. It seems to reward obscurity, because small corporations are usually not worth going after about patent violations. Medium-sized ones might be, and often settle out of court to avoid a lawsuit, making it profitable to go after them; I would guess that they’re the ones penalized the worst by this, but I’m not certain. Top corporations probably fall somewhere in-between; on the one hand, they tend to have good lawyers (repelling frivolous lawsuits), but on the other hand, they might stand to lose a very large sum in court.
Possibly anything where court rulings being made on the same case seem to see-saw back-and-forth as it goes up levels.