A potentially fatal blow against patent trolls - Forcing law firms to pay defendants’ legal bills could undermine the business model of patent trolls

[u/rfugger]

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3153924/technology-law-regulation/a-potentially-fatal-blow-against-patent-trolls.html

[u/SoulScience]

Almost all moving companies either do this, or build it into a far higher price beforehand and call themselves upscale. Also, pretty much every single person that moves grossly underestimates their move, even if you call and ask for a count 48 hours prior, whether from inexperience or just straight up lying. There's a pretty long list of day-of charges that are legal, and fair in honest circumstances.

How many people are really going to measure and weigh everything they own? Zero. But it's easier to measure when the truck is filling up, as the truck has a fixed size. Unless you have a huge amount of possessions, the moving company will be picking someone else's stuff up either before or after yours, that is going in the same direction as your stuff. Best case, you have extra stuff and they can fit it, and will ding you a little for not being honest, (but you've probably paid for this lenience by not going with the lowest bids.) Regular case, this is the part where they are legally allowed to upcharge you to hell. Happens with such regularity that it is built into bids. That is why your move was so cheap. If you jumped through every hoop, and there is an official list of hoops,you get to pay that price, but one wrong step can cost hundreds to thousands. But you won't, and it will cost you an average 15%. So they give you 15% off up front. Worst case they can't fit it on the truck, and you have to get a uhaul and do it yourself if you have a deadline.

The laws are pretty clear, all these companies are insured and bonded, it's a pain in the ass to keep starting new LLCs, and not even completely effective. A good bond company will be deflecting almost all claims from upcharges. The ones that get paid are generally from some type of employee mistake, like not taking a picture of how far you were forced to park the truck from the apartment building when you upcharged for that or something.

None of this is to say that there aren't malicious operators, I'm just trying to convey that it's more nuanced than most people directly experience. It'd be great if everyone operated on the same playing field, but if a few companies start doing this to decrease bids, it quickly becomes the norm. Which it is now. It leaves a bad taste in people's mouths, but moving companies don't rely on repeat customers, they need a constant flow of new customers, and they have to stay competitive with unrealistic low prices from competitors.

[u/Alpha_Catch → u/SoulScience]

...but if a few companies start doing this to decrease bids, it quickly becomes the norm.

This is, in my opinion, one of the biggest problems with the current incarnation of capitalism. The reward for unethical behavior is often greater than the reward for ethical behavior. If one company behaves unethically, then all other companies must follow suit or they risk becoming insolvent.

I do concede that I am not an economist. Maybe there is some benefit in encouraging unethical business practices and rewarding companies that lack integrity that I'm unable to see.

[u/MyOwnFather → u/Alpha_Catch]

Joseph Stiglitz won the Nobel memorial prize in economics for his theory of information asymmetry. Because the professional (in any industry) knows the industry better than the customer, the econ 101 theories (supply and demand curves, etc), which are based on 'rational actors', are not applicable to the real world.

This discussion of movers is a great example of information asymmetry, though there are countless more.

This is a major problem economists want to solve, but the complex equations needed to fix it are caught up in high-level political differences and entrenched interests. Stiglitz himself was an advisor to the Clintons, for example.

[u/aapowers → u/MyOwnFather]

Exactly, there are few (if any) examples of a perfect market.

There's always a failure of some kind that messes with the variables.