My favorite pair of glasses has a scratched lens (despite the much vaunted “no-scratch” coating). So, I went to Lenscrafters to get the lens replaced. They asked me when I got the prescription. It turns out it was a little over a year ago. “I’m sorry,” the woman at Lenscrafters tells me, “but we cannot replace the lens because your prescription has expired.”

Let’s review the situation. I have a scratched lens in a pair of glasses which are working very well for me. I can see perfectly clearly with the current prescription which is now just a little over a year old. State law prohibits Lenscrafters from replacing the lens. It is apparently ILLEGAL to replace a lens with a prescription older than 12 months.

Now, who benefits from a law of this type? Is it the consumer? No. Is it Lenscrafters? Not necessarily. They lost the opportunity to charge me for a replacement lens, though they may do better from me having to buy new glasses. But the biggest beneficiary is optometrists. Thanks to the law causing prescriptions to LEGALLY expire, I MUST go to an optometrist to solve my problem. Through legal (and therefore coercive) means, the optometrists have made themselves necessary gatekeepers to me resolving my personal vision issues even though I already have a prescription that works well.

Law is supposed to be made for the common good. But what we miss is that the government is an excellent instrument for profit seeking through regulation. If you make the government too big and too important, a variety of interests will go to the government to find a way to make their money instead of making it through customer service, innovation, etc..