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EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

consilium.europa.eu

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Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#571

Post by delecti »

peytoncasper wrote: post #366
delecti wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "invisible hand of the free market" doesn't work when manufacturing a device requires such a huge infrastructure around it, and benefits so much from economy of scale. "Exploitative business practices must not be that bad or the free market would step in" is a painfully naive take.

You're totally right. How ever will a tiny company like Apple compete against Blackberry with their massive marketshare advantage and extensive supply chain...

Assuming BlackBerry's annual sales were trending up YoY prior to the start of the graph in this article [1] (IMO a safe assumption), then Apple sold more iPods [2] than Blackberry every year starting at least by 2004, 3 years before the first iPhone. They were never a "tiny company" in comparison to BlackBerry.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/blackberry-phone-sales-decli...

[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_quart...

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#572

Post by neither_color »

a4a4a4a4 wrote: post #194

I'm not sure how I feel about this. My gut instinct is that opening these things can lead to a ton of malware and fake app stores, which will lead to a not-insignificant number of people being victimized. I'm also annoyed that the EU produces effectively 0 innovative tech, and subsequently has very suppressed tech salaries, but is so ready to regulate the American companies that make the world go 'round.

I'm more worried about product line bifurcation. Europe has chosen this point in time to say "ok, the tech is good enough we're going to regulate and mandate a tech bill of rights now, anything new requires committee and our consent." As soon as something better comes along Europeans will get nerfed Europe-compliant phones and tech savvy Europeans will be importing grey market phones from America and Asia.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#573

Post by rcpt »

nemothekid wrote: post #178
bloppe wrote: post #81

It blows my mind how many people have bought into Apple's position on this. No, Apple restricting your freedom does not afford you greater security. You, as an adult, can choose not to install shady software. If you're not confident in your ability to tell shady from legit, just stick to the App Store. Don't demand that Apple treat the rest of us like children just because that's how you would like to be treated.

> You, as an adult, can choose not to install shady software. For some reason every Linux user assumes everyone is as smart as they are and anyone who doesn't take the time to learn whatever esoteric config file to manage their DE is a child that can't tell left from right. Somehow the decade of directed scams and proliferation of malware and spyware isn't a problem and it's the developers "right" to be able to turn…

DJI already does this with their Android app. The play store version doesn't work so you need to sideload something from their website.

No idea what they're doing with the data but there's no other way to fly your drone.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#574

Post by dane-pgp »

InsomniacL wrote: post #464

In 6 months time am i going to be able to send a whatsapp message to someone on facebook messenger?

The other question is, will you be able to follow a Twitter user from Facebook, and send them a DM?

I think the answer is "No", because that counts as social media interoperability rather than messenger interoperability, but I don't understand how Facebook have managed to convince the EU to exempt them from this.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#575

Post by ClumsyPilot »

buscoquadnary wrote: post #411
tirpen wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these rules apply only to companies above a certain size, both in number of users and revenue. Those get classified as "digital gatekeepers" and they are the companies that have to comply with extra requirements. So no, this will not affect startups and harm innovation, it will just force the monopolistic behemoths to play nice and cease actively harming innovation.

It also starts to bother me quite a bit when we go from treating everyone equal before the law to creating certain requirements based on other factors. Further it seems more like a moat to keep anyone else from getting as big as these "digital gatekeepers" are as suddenly when you get to a certain size you have an enormous expense. If these companies really are that large that they have to get special laws for them i…

> treating everyone equal before the law to creating certain requirements

we are not treated the same, If I killed 300 people the way boeing did with its Max debacle, I would be serving 15 consecutive life sentences.

for all the times a corporation kills people, almost never does anyone go to jail

> isnt the solution to dissolve their monopoly

Why is that the preffered solution? If you are arguing for that, you need to provide some reasoning or benefits.

I am sure they would prefer not to be split up.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#576

Post by rnk »

piaste wrote: post #439
foepys wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple can be broken up in multiple ways. - smartphones - desktop/laptops - music and video streaming - App Store and payments with Apple Pay - chip design - physical stores All of those could stand on their own. Edit: I'm not saying that the EU can break them up but Apple is not a company with a single field where breaking it up is impossible. I misread the parent a bit.

How does the EU force an American company to break up? (Not a rhetorical question) Perhaps they might pull a China and require them to open a 51% EU-owned subsidiary to do business here, which would then be subject to all sort of restrictions including company size. As a EU citizen, I would absolutely love it. But I suspect that the EU is bound by many more and much more comprehensive free-trade treaties than China i…

They can tax and fine them unsustainable fees, prohibit them from being used there. Thus they can control them. If Apple found that onerous they could choose not to be in business there.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#577

Post by Apocryphon »

somethoughts wrote: post #570
brtkdotse wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a popular opinion around here, but the reason I like my iPhone is _because_ it’s a walled garden. It just works, reliably, without surprises, for years on end.

If I were Apple - the way I would have gone about it was to sell an open developer phone that supported changing the defaults, etc. That way when the inevitable "Apple has been hacked and is no better than Android" media driven hit pieces come out - Apple can highlight that this is happening on the open developer phone meant for the fringe consumers, not the safe walled garden that most of us normal, non bleeding edg…

Really, Apple could have headed off regulators at the pass if they had embraced the (semi-)opening of their platform themselves. Allow third party app stores but on their own terms, providing SDKs and APIs for creating your own iOS App Store with security checks baked in and mandating privacy protections built in. Sort of like a software services equivalent to Apple Authorized Service Providers and Apple Authorized Resellers.

They would have then controlled this debate, and there would have been less room for the Epics of the world to complain about the platform being locked down. Not to mention users would benefit from greater choice. Imagine boutique third party app stores springing up devoted to specific interests and niches such as F-Droid, or promising better curation or quality.

Companies who refuse to use the AppStoreKit that Apple so beneficently provided would then be seen as malefactors seeking to subject their users to lack of privacy and security, rather than Apple trying to uphold their 30% cut and restrictive behavior.

Instead, Apple tried to control everything and not only did they expose themselves to regulation like this, they deal with customers annoyed at scammy apps on their own App Store, and third party devs crying foul at inconsistent policing.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#578

Post by whimsicalism »

sfe22 wrote: post #534
Tryk wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopolistic regulation? This is clearly aimed against existing monopolies, i.e. gatekeepers. Can you explain how ensuring that 1. Making unsubscribing is as easy as subscribing, and 2. Guaranteed interoperability between instant messaging services, and 3. Sharing marketing and/or advertisement performance with business users will "kill competition"?

Quoted post unavailable.

> It is monopolistic regulation, as in the people of Europe do not have a choice on another regulation, or no regulation if it doesn't suit them. It affects everyone and can severely harm ones freedom of choice in that area.

What? They have a choice in whom they vote for.

Or you mean that all legislation is "monopolistic"?

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#579

Post by dane-pgp »

switch007 wrote: post #171

Hopefully this goes better than GDPR. The only outcome I’ve seen is all my friends and family clicking “I accept” to explicitly allow tracking. Remember how we were praising GDPR and the level of fines etc…

If sites actually obeyed the GDPR (i.e. if national governments actually devoted enough resources to enforcing it) then all those banners would have a "Reject" button that is just as clickable as the "Accept" one.

Hopefully your friends and family haven't become so trained to look for the word "accept" that they will be unable to find the correct button when companies finally start complying. Or better yet, companies will realise that 99% of users click reject, and the tracking data provided by the remaining 1% is not valuable enough to annoy the 99% for.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#580

Post by ClumsyPilot »

jszymborski wrote: post #479
buscoquadnary wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also starts to bother me quite a bit when we go from treating everyone equal before the law to creating certain requirements based on other factors. Further it seems more like a moat to keep anyone else from getting as big as these "digital gatekeepers" are as suddenly when you get to a certain size you have an enormous expense. If these companies really are that large that they have to get special laws for them i…

It's the difference between equality and equity.

there are two kinds of people in the world - those that think corporatuon are people, and those who haven't lost their mind.

I can't understand why would anyone apply narrative of systemic opression and social issues to corporations.

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