As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs • Hacker News Board

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#91

Post by dahinds » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:07 PM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #39

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm skeptical of it being just regulation driven It seems to be blatantly obviously regulation in this case. There are electric wheelchairs in other countries. What's stopping them from being imported are the regulations.

Then, how would it fix things then if it wasn't private equity dominating that market? There would still be regulations that would allow public equity wheelchair makers to jack prices.

It would not necessarily fix things if private equity wasn't involved, but private equity is particularly effective at identifying cases where a market or regulatory inefficiency is not being maximally exploited, and jumping in to extract profits from that. So sort of by construction, when private equity enters a particular market, things are likely to get worse for consumers. It doesn't mean that things are golden if private equity is not involved.

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#92

Post by Gormo » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:07 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #73

mhh__ wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That some people apparently can't see this strat with AI "safety" laws is genuinely bizarre.

How do think we should address security around AI, and the public's control over a major impact on their lives, welfare, freedom, prosperity, etc.

The first step is to stop thinking of "the public" as a monolithic entity whose interests are pursued by the government, and instead recognize that control over things that have a major impact on the lives, welfare, freedom, and prosperity need to be things they can effectively control or opt-out of as individuals.

Regulatory intervention makes it harder, not easier, for individuals to take charge of these matters for themselves. You can bet that the first casualty of a regulatory regime for AI would be to suppress development of FOSS solutions that would eventually give people the maximal control and benefit from AI, and force them into dependence on third-party solutions offered by organizations that have influence over the regulatory regime itself.

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#93

Post by Fricken » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:07 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #72

TechWorld01 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can buy an electric wheelchair at Walmart for $750. What is the issue?

As the sibling comments noted, we're talking about bespoke wheelchairs for people with severe mobility disability (MS, ALS, etc). Things like Stephen Hawking's chair.

Still, they shouldn't cost more than a high end Ebike.

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#94

Post by atq2119 » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:07 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #12

readyman wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism works perfectly if you just ignore all the inevitable disasterous consequences and outright failures.

And your better alternative is........... ?

Market socialism. Or some in-between that recognizes that wealth and corporate power has a genuine responsibility to society as a whole. Myopic focus on profit as the only metric is the biggest problem, after all.

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#95

Post by roughly » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:08 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #81

pdonis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In free market it's also OK to cut costs as much as possible, making chair that explode and kill the user one day after the warranty expires. No, it isn't, because nobody will buy chairs from a company that does that. In a free market, no company can use the get out of jail free card of "but I was following all the regulations". Businesses have to actually meet customer needs. And in a free market, customers can't…

It's all theoretical. Do you see it actually working out this way? When and where? > regulators just, you know, look at the design of the chairs to evaluate them for certification. But customers could do the same thing for themselves, at less cost (what, you think those government regulators work for free?). So the regulations are actually adding zero value. But they're certainly not adding zero cost. I have little i…

Eternal September, except it’s an Econ 1 class.

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#96

Post by 7thaccount » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:08 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #11

7thaccount wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private Equity really is a pox on society. One reason they may not be able to hire is that they paid a ton to buy out all the competition and now have a bunch of investors wanting to see high rates of return. That requires cutting staff and raising prices. I'm all for a free society that allows private parties to make agreements, but PE is by definition all about breaking markets by creating a monopoly where they hav…

> Private Equity really is a pox on society. Every single non-public business is "Private Equity". How is every single small business in the entire world "a pox on society"? Perhaps you mean "short term thinking" is a pox on society? Or in, like in this case, a duopoly is the issue? If there were 10 such companies a reputation for slow repair would drive people to other suppliers and things would rapidly get better.

I'm referring to the large investor firms that go around buying out companies not listed on the stock exchange to capture entire markets, milk it for all it's worth, and then dump the shriveled corpse. This is very rarely good for the end customers or the employees who get outsourced. The owner gets millions though and it allows the PE firm to sell an asset class to investors.

On the one hand, I don't think it's right to restrict the rights of the business owner. If they have a company with $20M in revenue and PE offers $60M to buy them out...fair game right? On the other hand, it takes perfectly profitable companies providing value, extracts that wealth from happy consumers of the product to people already wealthy and then leaves the consumer with a crappy, expensive, and barely supported product. If this happens just a few times...it sucks, but no big deal. Once it starts happening all over America, then we start running into systemic problems like not being fleeced every time you want to go to a concert. It's not like a competing firm can just pop up either in a lot of cases as there are huge barriers to entry. There is no recourse other than not ever seeing your favorite artist again.

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#97

Post by cogman10 » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:09 PM UTC

minusLik wrote: post #67

What the article does not seem to mention is that an usual electric wheelchair costs about $65,000 (and is intended to be replaced every six years or so). This and the non-availability of replacement parts is why some wheelchair users started a project to open-source a wheelchair from standard parts: https://themif.org/ Louis Rossmann interviewed the founder of the project here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaAj59…

Really cool that an electric wheelchair costs more than a luxury EV and is somehow less reliable.

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#98

Post by wolverine876 » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:09 PM UTC

sangnoir wrote: post #84

wolverine876 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do think we should address security around AI, and the public's control over a major impact on their lives, welfare, freedom, prosperity, etc.

> How do think we should address security around AI The same way we address security around cars: we don't ban individuals from working on project cars, or driving them on public roads - instead, we have standards for OEMs and individuals, and prosecute negligence. AI safely is similar to GM lobbying for laws making it illegal to tweak your own car or changing your own brake fluid for "public safety".

> we don't ban individuals from working on project cars, or driving them on public roads - instead, we have standards for OEMs and individuals, and prosecute negligence

I'm not quite sure what you mean, or what in AI safety you see as analogous.

For other technology, certainly building and using certain things is illegal - you can't make hand grenades, lots of chemicals; I'm pretty sure you can't own certain instruments of crime, counterfeit money, etc. Many things you can do; it's not all or nothing.

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#99

Post by readyman » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:09 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #86

minusLik wrote: post #67

What the article does not seem to mention is that an usual electric wheelchair costs about $65,000 (and is intended to be replaced every six years or so). This and the non-availability of replacement parts is why some wheelchair users started a project to open-source a wheelchair from standard parts: https://themif.org/ Louis Rossmann interviewed the founder of the project here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaAj59…

This is a great project. I didn't realize that FDA Class I regulations were this easy to comply with.

>I didn't realize that FDA Class I regulations were this easy to comply with.

They definitely won't be once this open source effort shows any sign of success. You can't solve political problems with technical solutions. At best, you may be able to displace them, but even that is rare.

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#100

Post by JumpCrisscross » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:09 PM UTC

MichaelZuo wrote: post #80

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how would it fix things then if it wasn't private equity dominating that market? I'd start importing them for less than $500 from India [1]. (Versus $1,500 to $6,000 for these jalopies.) [1] https://www.amazon.in/electric-wheelchair/s?k=electric+wheel...

The regulations don't just disappear to allow for such imports as in your example ...?

> regulations don't just disappear to allow for such imports as in your example

My point is the regulations are leading to the duopoly, which is the source of the problem. The last private-equity owner seems to have been fine. And the market was competitive before the CMS rules in 2005. I’m not suggesting scrapping the rules. But the rules are clearly well past safety.