Regulation rarely controls outcomes; it controls who is allowed to attempt them.

Regulation is less a steering wheel than a gate. When access to experimentation is gated, progress tilts toward compliance over discovery.

Regulation is often defended as a tool for shaping outcomes: safer markets, fairer competition, fewer failures. In practice, its most consistent effect is different. Rules rarely decide which technologies succeed, which business models endure, or which social reforms take root. They decide who can legally participate in the attempt, who can raise capital without friction, who can run pilots, who can access infrastructure, and who can operate at scale without being buried in approvals.