Reform changes more than account balances and headline fees. It changes how institutions behave under the new set of rules — often in ways the reform's authors never modelled.
A fee cap intended to help members can quietly push providers toward passive strategies to protect margins. A new default fund can concentrate flows toward whichever provider is fastest to comply, regardless of long-term performance. A reporting requirement designed for transparency can become a target that gets optimised rather than a true picture that gets improved.
Reading reform for its second-order effects
None of this means reform is misguided — most of it responds to real problems. It means that evaluating a reform properly requires asking not just "does this fix the stated problem" but "what does this make cheaper, easier, or more rewarding for the institutions inside the system." That second question is where the more durable effects usually live.