Well, I was born in East Germany and grew up there. Later I decided to vote with my feet, and pay my taxes in Singapore instead. Much better value for my tax money here---both lower taxes and better government services.
Btw, I'm not saying people are perfectly rational when voting with their feet or wallet. Just that they are much, much more rational than at the ballot booth.
> Let alone when it’s free in the sense that the users never pays directly but through things as ads and privacy.
Well, can't argue about taste? Perhaps people prefer it that way?
> This means that lawmakers will sometimes have to do th8ngs the voters don’t understand they want. It’s on them to explain it to the voters. And it’s on the voters to vote them out if they still don’t agree.
I am basically agreeing with you: voting is a weak channel to transmit information. Almost no individual vote makes a difference. Neither in aggregate nor to the individual voting.
Voting with your feet or wallet does make an immediate difference to yourself, and has at least a clear marginal impact in aggregate. There are less weird threshold effects than in politics. A dollar more spend on iPhones is a dollar more spend on iPhones; but another vote for candidate A only makes a difference if it makes her have more votes than candidate B.
(And proportional representation only helps partially: in the end it's important which coalitions can form a majority in parliament, whether one party has one seat more or less doesn't make much of a difference usually.)
I'd like to give sortition a try to fill up parliament.
Btw, I'm not saying people are perfectly rational when voting with their feet or wallet. Just that they are much, much more rational than at the ballot booth.
> Let alone when it’s free in the sense that the users never pays directly but through things as ads and privacy.
Well, can't argue about taste? Perhaps people prefer it that way?
> This means that lawmakers will sometimes have to do th8ngs the voters don’t understand they want. It’s on them to explain it to the voters. And it’s on the voters to vote them out if they still don’t agree.
I am basically agreeing with you: voting is a weak channel to transmit information. Almost no individual vote makes a difference. Neither in aggregate nor to the individual voting.
Voting with your feet or wallet does make an immediate difference to yourself, and has at least a clear marginal impact in aggregate. There are less weird threshold effects than in politics. A dollar more spend on iPhones is a dollar more spend on iPhones; but another vote for candidate A only makes a difference if it makes her have more votes than candidate B.
(And proportional representation only helps partially: in the end it's important which coalitions can form a majority in parliament, whether one party has one seat more or less doesn't make much of a difference usually.)
I'd like to give sortition a try to fill up parliament.