As a society, we seem to have one tool or mechanism for dealing with problems: add more rules, regulations and constraints. Worried about the use of data by companies: GDPR and the Data Act. Fearing the implications of AI: AI act. Concerned about cybersecurity: Cyber Resilience Act. The environment: Product Sustainability Act. It doesn’t just apply to politics. It also applies to home owner associations, academic conferences, public transport, social media and so on. The typical pattern is that one or a few a-holes act out and create some hassle and some new rule or constraint is put in place that everyone is paying the price for in terms of effort, cost or attention. Just think about the number of times you need to accept (or reject) cookies on websites that you visit. The problem is that especially in Europe, we have been following this playbook for decades and the regulatory system is so complex that you can simply not do anything without breaking some rules. The consequence is that entire industries of regulatory experts, tool providers, litigators, legal experts and others are created that don’t add any real economic benefit, but leech resources away from areas that would have led to real benefit for humanity. We can’t just keep adding rules, laws and regulations. We also need to remove outdated ones. My wish would be that every new rule should have an associated measurable impact. If the introduction of the rule does not accomplish the impact or produces unacceptable secondary effects, it should be automatically revoked. And existing regulation should be automatically cancelled when the intended effect is achieved or when it turns out to fail to deliver on the intended outcomes over time. We need a balancing force to keep us from being regulated to death!