>> Nobody cares about absolute overhead, but relative overhead. In the U.S., the legal sector's share of GDP has been steadily declining since the 1970's.
Yes, but you shouldn't look at relative overhead in terms of the legal sector's share of the GDP, because that doesn't tell you the whole story. What you need to look at is relative overhead in terms of the average person's ability to afford legal services. Essentially, it comes down to this: if people are able to use the threat of litigation to bully others because they know that lawsuits would be too expensive for those others, something is terribly, terribly wrong.
>>Nobody would use user documentation to resolve a dispute about, say, whether a feature was implemented properly--they'd look at the specification.
I'd say that if users cannot use the feature because they don't understand it, it doesn't matter whether it was implemented properly: it's a failed feature.
Essentially what we are asking people is to abide by the law, but making the law too complicated to understand by the average person. Do you honestly not see the problem with that? I read somewhere that everyone is a criminal because we just have too many laws and people break them all the time without realizing it.
Yes, but you shouldn't look at relative overhead in terms of the legal sector's share of the GDP, because that doesn't tell you the whole story. What you need to look at is relative overhead in terms of the average person's ability to afford legal services. Essentially, it comes down to this: if people are able to use the threat of litigation to bully others because they know that lawsuits would be too expensive for those others, something is terribly, terribly wrong.
>>Nobody would use user documentation to resolve a dispute about, say, whether a feature was implemented properly--they'd look at the specification.
I'd say that if users cannot use the feature because they don't understand it, it doesn't matter whether it was implemented properly: it's a failed feature.
Essentially what we are asking people is to abide by the law, but making the law too complicated to understand by the average person. Do you honestly not see the problem with that? I read somewhere that everyone is a criminal because we just have too many laws and people break them all the time without realizing it.