> This is not the market changing, it's a law crushing a free market that already existed.
In that case, what’s the difference between a free market and a compulsory market?
If market participants must only participate by choosing to spend or to not spend, they are beholden to the economic system, and are unfree actors in the status quo “free market” economic situation.
And yet by exercising political freedom to make themselves (more) free, these unfree participants in the “free market” somehow make the market unfree, and instead of viewing that as a benefit to market participants, you view it as a loss of freedom in the status quo “free market” to the detriment of the unfree participants.
I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, just trying to understand where you’re coming from.
And those same “unfree” participants are free to legislate what websites may or may not do with information that websites collect. The websites are similarly free to not do things that are prohibited by law in a given jurisdiction, or else not offer services to users subject to that legal jurisdiction.
There was never any “free market” status quo in the absence of regulation to begin with, either in statute or in practice. There always are forces external to the market which act upon it, and some of those forces are individuals and groups of people.
To say the free market exists, did previously exist, or could one day exist, is a truth claim I don’t see the evidence to support. Advocating for a “free market” as opposed to the status quo is both an economic and a political position, and thus should address both economic and political aspects of the issue you present.
What about this would you rather be different, and how so? Or what about this would you characterize differently?
In that case, what’s the difference between a free market and a compulsory market?
If market participants must only participate by choosing to spend or to not spend, they are beholden to the economic system, and are unfree actors in the status quo “free market” economic situation.
And yet by exercising political freedom to make themselves (more) free, these unfree participants in the “free market” somehow make the market unfree, and instead of viewing that as a benefit to market participants, you view it as a loss of freedom in the status quo “free market” to the detriment of the unfree participants.
I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, just trying to understand where you’re coming from.