When Law Can't Keep Up With Technology

In the 1910s, the number of cars in the US exploded from 200,000 to 2.5 million. 

The newfangled machines scared horses and ran over pedestrians, but by the time government could pass the very first traffic law, it was too late to stop them.

 Now Kevin Matley writes in Newsweek that thanks to political gridlock in the US, lawmakers respond to innovations with all the speed of continental drift. 

New technologies spread almost instantly and take hold with almost no legal oversight. 

According to Matley, this is terrific for tech startups, especially those aimed at demolishing creaky old norms—like taxis, or flight paths over crowded airspace, or money.

 "Drone aircraft are suddenly filling the sky, and a whole multibillion-dollar industry of drone making and drone services has taken hold," says Matley.

 "If the FAA had been either farsighted or fast moving, at the first sign of drones it might've outlawed them or confined them to someplace like Oklahoma where they can't get in the way of anything too important. 

But now the FAA is forced to accommodate drones, not the other way around."

  "...what, if anything, should we fear from them.
One thing we kept coming back to throughout our conversation was how new and ambiguous the regulatory and legal environment is.

 Can you shoot down a drone if it’s threatening you?

 How much airspace do you control over your property? 

Sadly, the law is ill-equipped to deal with these questions in 2015."

 Bitcoin is another example of a technology that's too late to stop. 

 "But have you heard the word bitcoin uttered once in any of the presidential debates? 

Government doesn't even understand bitcoin, and that's been really good for it."  

Uber and Airbnb show how to execute this outrun-the-government strategy. 

By the time cities understood what those companies were doing, it was too late to block or seriously limit them.