Mitigating Externalities

Historically, overly-extractive business models eventually face pressure from the public, shareholders, and regulators.

Once-unstoppable cigarette companies have been forced to pay the public health costs of their products and fund billion-dollar anti-smoking marketing campaigns.

The market conditions for renewable energy have become favorable as the costs of climate change become clearer to an increasingly concerned public.

A similar story has played out in industries ranging from meat-packing to pesticides. Technology—especially social media—is seeing this same reckoning today.

Public pressure and regulation aren’t enough to eliminate harmful externalities, but they can severely limit externalities and create the conditions for alternatives to emerge.

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Found these ideas in a foundational course over at the Center for Humane Technology.