It may seem slightly above inconsequential, but parking. Parking is a great example of arbitrary rules having longstanding effects. (Really neat video on parking regulations - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUNXFHpUhu8)
As for more inconsequential. Leafblowers Leafblowers immediately banned unless they are
Less than 20db
Zero emission
ONLY USED AFTER 9AM WHY IN GODS NAME ARE YOU LEAF-BLOWING AT 8AM ON A SATURDAY
Laptop keyboard layouts. There is no reason they should be so different.
Specifically, those laptops that have full-sized left and right arrows, but half-sized up and down arrows - those earn 1 week of jail time for the CEO per unit sold.
While we're at it, the power button must be in the same place on all laptops.
TV remotes, computer speakers, car radios, etc must have two sets of volume up / volume down controls. One for upper volume limit, and one for the lower.
Now I can hear what the characters are whispering to eachother, without waking up the entire apartment complex when there's a gunshot on screen.
Or hear the quiet parts of music when I'm driving without blowing my eardrums out when the contrasting high energy part kicks in.
Packaging for supermarket products should have what the product is big and the branding small. Not the other way around.
Oh. Sound mixing on movies/tv shows should be such that voice lines are always perfectly audible even on shitty speakers. Make actors e n u n c i a t e like they did in the 30s. Christopher Nolan has a lot to answer for, turning all of media into mumblecore chief among those things.
LEDs on electronics need either a maximum brightness or an adjustable brightness. I have taken to covering the LEDs on charger bricks with Sharpie/tape (often multiple layers of tape) to dampen the brightness because I cannot function with these damn things at night.
Address numbers are to be placed in a prominent position, with a font that is legible from the street and illuminated at night, on every building in cities and towns.
Out in the country address numbers are to be displayed on reflective signs at the end of the driveway and again if/when a shared driveway splits.
Those yellow bump things for blind people. They need to follow a spec that then in turn cart manufacturers, wheelchair manufacturers, and wagon cart manufacturers all build around so that when I travel over them they don’t jostle my whole cart around and tip over my drink.
Oncoming car headlights should not blind you. Companies need to stop making these and if they are custom jobs, this should be easy tickets for the police.
A modern standard for indoor lighting receptacles.
It’s silly that we ship a driver and circuit board packed into the lightbulb just to make it compatible with screw bulb receptacles. We should have a new socket that accepts efficient lightbulbs and that can reuse or modularize driver electronics. Instead, the market has gone for full integration at the expense of the consumer.
If you build a new home these days, you get the lightbulb and fixture integrated together. This necessitates replacing the entire assembly when it fails, and when you have to do this eventually you’re going to have mismatched indoor lighting unless you had the foresight to buy extra units.
We need a new lightbulb socket standard, but for modern lighting.
I'd like ALL game advertising to be composed of at least 50% actual in game screenshots or or videos, but that would actually be consequential and good
For inconsequential, remove stupid-proofing from certain products, like "warning: contains eggs" in egg cartons
I think most of these ideas are great but actually too consequential.
Chargers should have an LED that displays red while charging and green when finished. An amber LED toward the end is acceptable. I'm not making this up. I have an item that only displays solid red, when it's finished charging.
If you do any industrial processing step which creates something harmful for the environment, your company is responsible for undoing that step after nobody wants the result any more.
This creates an incentive to recycle and build stuff to be able to deconstruct it's components. Less stuff in the landfills and more raw materials for recycling.
Let the consumer bear the cost by paying the real price of a product and not mother nature.
Packaging should be made to be reusable. Glass jars must have easily removable labels, plastic wrap would only be allowed for sterile equipment, otherwise you have to use paper and other biodegradable materials. Branding would have to be completely removable too. Basically, packaging would remain a product of the state, and would be completely controlled. Corporations would have to pay packaging tax to subsidize control of this.
Anyone who lets their dog bark outside for 10+ continuous minutes (except in case of emergency) loses dog privileges for a year. One year added for every five minutes over 10.
ShotSpotter installs can be repurposed to locate homes of negligent owners who are annoying the entire neighborhood by letting their dogs bark unmitigated.
Expand allergy warning labels on products. Mammal product allergy exists, it's called alpha-gal syndrome - one of the issues that can arise from a tick bite. I would like to see allergy labels for beef, pork, gelatin, and carrageenan alongside the ones for milk, wheat, nuts, etc.
Stickers put on products by manufacturers or retailers must either be on the product packaging or be made with the material that leaves no residue behind when peeled off.
New "No Ads" holiday. No ads on TV or the entire internet for one day, physical billboards can stay, digital billboards must be turned off, essentially all form of digital advertisement is disallowed. If a company breaks those rules, it is fined 50% of its average annual revenue.
Break up the monopoly that Match Group and Bumble Inc hold on the market, by working with the Federal Trade Commission and UK Competitions & Markets Authority.
Introduce caps on what apps can charge for Premium features. Charging the same price as several World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV subscriptions just to see likes is scummy as fuck.
Introduce mandatory ID verification to dissuade fake users, and have very strict regulations on how said data is processed and stored, with massive fines for data breaches that could easily have been avoided.
Have a correct appeals process towards account penalties/closure and outlaw the use of shadowbanning.
E-bike legislation. Here in BC Canada, you're limited to 500W motor and 32KPH. while I have no problem with the speed limit, I think they should allow up to at least 1000w motors. Heavier individuals such as myself would crush a 500w motor.
Early access and beta and alpha terms for games. Also, early access has a time limit.
Alpha - we're adding and removing features.
Beta - we're 90% polishing 10% adding/removing.
Early access - just fixing bugs. Maximum 3 to 6 months.
You can stay in alpha and beta as long as you want. I don't want to change game dev actuality. I just want the terms to reflect what's actually going on.
The THC content of edibles. It's unregulated in NYC so everything seemingly has between 30mg and 1250mg while I'm sitting here with a 10mg hard limit. A few states have a 5mg or 10mg per serving limit and it's wonderful
Drinking straws are too wide/girthy on average. Every fast food and coffee place uses giant straws, while a relatively skinny straw provides a vastly superior drinking experience, in my view.
Emergency brakes should be a handle that pulls a mechanical cable that directly actuates the rear brakes. Simple and reliable, like you would want in an emergency.
Advertisements should always say what the thing is and what it does.
Disney + show ads on YouTube are like, two dialogue lines, and then "Stream now on Disney Plus". Only thing more annoying than an ad is an ad where you don't even understand what the hell they were trying to sell you.
Every keyboard must have a home and end key that doesn't require pressing additional keys like fn, and home must go to the start of the line, while end goes to the end of the line.
The top speed of cars is limited to the highest speed limit in the country they're certified for.
For emergencies, there's a covered switch on the dash which disables the limit, calls 911 and transmits your position to them.
In-game currency and microtransactions are fine, as long as the app can pay out for the same service/item. If I can buy a sword for $5, I can also sell that sword to the app developer and get $5 back. If I can pay $1 to skip a level, I can redeem $1 for beating said level.
Everyone is obligated to share their truthful impression of everyone they encounter upon every contact. Just get past all the stigma. We'd all know most of us are totally indifferent to one another. However I would love for it to be normal to tell people I'm attracted to without stigma and in the casual context that I feel without there being some deeper meaning, awkwardness, or tension.
All vehicles have an auto-sensor that detects when the steering mechanism is turned past a certain point and activates the fucking turn signal. Deactivates it once the steering mechanism returns past that point.