Comment by Fezzik

I don’t know if an analogy would help, but I thought the point the article was trying to make was sort of like distinguishing between a dude selling shoes at Foot Locker and a podiatrist - most people just need someone with a basic knowledge of shoes to get appropriate-enough footwear, while a small percentage of people with foot issues may need a podiatrist to do so, so how stupid would it be if we made everyone who wanted shoes go to a podiatrist to get shoes? It would be very stupid, and an excessive and unnecessary barrier to entry in to the wearing-shoes group. The same goes for glasses. The fact that we make everyone see a doctor that is formally trained to diagnose actual diseases and deformities of the eye just to get a pair of glasses is absurd. Almost anyone could be trained in a single day to prescribe glasses - calculating the needed power of lenses is a solved and mostly mechanical process. Sure, it would be great if everyone saw an expert in every field before making any purchasing decisions, but given that it is substantially more costly, cumbersome, and clearly unnecessary, why should we force people to do it?