Yeah it's a reasonable point of view. The other way to go on that is you're in an country whose culture you don't understand which as a wildly corrupt, crony-riddled military dictator and nobody has any rights at all.
Do you want locally bottled Coke(tm) with the red label and dynamic ribbon for your very thirsty child or locally bottled "Odin's Thirst Quencher! (est. 2021)"?
Coke are going to enforce quality control and safety to protect their brand or get out of that market. There is no regulation you can rely on in this mythical country - but there are quite a few countries like that which you may know yourself from having visited them. In France, say, you have regulation that safety is not a concern. When you don't have it you have brands - the owner has the incentive to protect them. So it goes also in France, or the USA or other wealthy countries to the parts of commerce that are not regulated (whether they could be or whether that's because it's not feasible).
But the higher issue is information. Should you be able to sell the same product with a very different quality under the same name? Let's say we agree the answer is ideally "no, you can't do that." Now we want to regulate that you can't do that. How is it enforced? There may be ways. There may be grey areas. The cost may be prohibitive in many instances or there might be new solutions to mitigate those problems.
What is isn't is easy which you can see as soon as you apply it to the industry and case under discussion. Intensive industry training schools.
> Do you want locally bottled Coke(tm) with the red label and dynamic ribbon for your very thirsty child or locally bottled "Odin's Thirst Quencher! (est. 2021)"?
> Coke are going to enforce quality control and safety to protect their brand or get out of that market. There is no regulation you can rely on in this mythical country - but there are quite a few countries like that which you may know yourself from having visited them.
I'd argue that in a lawless country people have no faith in the brands either. Look at the fake Apple stores in China, or at parents importing identically-branded baby formula from abroad because they (justifiably) didn't trust the locally produced version.
It's obviously not a panacea. You may not be able to trust the brand is what it claims to be. You frequently can't in wealthy countries with low corruption indexes.
There are plenty of times what you trust is the interests of the brand holder to defend the value of the brand where regulation can't help you. Coke in a sealed bottle is extremely likely to be coke in a sealed bottle in Mogadishu. The brand "Coke" gives you some information about the probability of not drinking poison. Obviously it isn't perfect. I think it's evident that it isn't something to be dismissed as inconsequential information either. Coke will be trying very hard to make sure nobody impersonates them and kills their customers anywhere in the world because it would be an advertising disaster. Better that than nothing.
(Just quietly I hate the coca cola company and think they are pretty evil. Diabetes. Obesity. They're similar to a cigarette company. Meh. Useful points can still be made using their business as an example.)
Do you want locally bottled Coke(tm) with the red label and dynamic ribbon for your very thirsty child or locally bottled "Odin's Thirst Quencher! (est. 2021)"?
Coke are going to enforce quality control and safety to protect their brand or get out of that market. There is no regulation you can rely on in this mythical country - but there are quite a few countries like that which you may know yourself from having visited them. In France, say, you have regulation that safety is not a concern. When you don't have it you have brands - the owner has the incentive to protect them. So it goes also in France, or the USA or other wealthy countries to the parts of commerce that are not regulated (whether they could be or whether that's because it's not feasible).
But the higher issue is information. Should you be able to sell the same product with a very different quality under the same name? Let's say we agree the answer is ideally "no, you can't do that." Now we want to regulate that you can't do that. How is it enforced? There may be ways. There may be grey areas. The cost may be prohibitive in many instances or there might be new solutions to mitigate those problems.
What is isn't is easy which you can see as soon as you apply it to the industry and case under discussion. Intensive industry training schools.