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

consilium.europa.eu

721–730 of 1001 posts

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

#721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fines are up to 10% of global revenue for the first offense, and 20% for repeat offenses. For Alphabet (Google) the revenue distribution from 2015 to 2021 was approximately 33% for all of Europe, Middle-east, and Africa. It's unclear to me the actual European numbers since they are combined EMEA. For Apple in 2021 the revenue was approximately 23% for Europe (no middle-east or Africa). For Facebook in 2021 the reve…

What would the money even be used for? Why does the government have to profit from enforcing this. I’d be fine if we take the money and burn it but it’s not gonna be that is it it’s gonna be we take the money and funnel it into organizations that politicians children happen to be on the boards of.

Deflationary fines are a hilarious idea. If you don't comply, we'll take 10% the value of your company and publicly set fire to it, enriching all consumers in the process

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

#722
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…

> 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.

They are literally the internet. That’s not about some companies to get some of there dollars. They literally gatekeeping. Amazon just shut down a whole social media platform. You can’t sell apps to iOS without paying Apple a big part of it (15 % - 30 %). Yeah you could say just create your own phone that would be fine right? How realistic is this. You can’t even build a good one because the bigger companies have so many patents you can’t go out. Then you write your own OS because you don’t want to pay and global company for using there OS. So give me my 200billion $ to get in the market. You can’t even advertise your product because they wouldn’t show your ad at all. That’s equal?

Also the EU can’t just split up companies. It’s a step to get some freedom back.

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

#723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that’s really how it rolls out, doesn’t it also mean that Safari wasn’t viable on itself and nobody wanted to use it in the first place ? Apple is no underdog anymore, if their browser couldn‘t compete on its own merit I won’t be crying a river over it. Firefox, while mired with its own problems, is another story; but I don’t see Mozilla losing from this decision.

Why is Firefox another story?

Because it’s a whole can of worm that needs so much more to be discussed.

In a nutshell, I’m not sure Mozilla can still bring relevant change to the landscape, even if its handicap goes away.

As a firefox user, I feel it truely suffered from both Safari locking it out the the emerging mobile web where it had the biggest chance to shine (I actually like firefox mobile even with its current pretty severe limitations), and from Chrome pushing it down from the heavy desktop applications for reasons that aren’t only performance.

So it sits in a tough position, but Mozilla also appears to be shooting itself in the foot time after time, and I wonder if the people that made the magic happen haven’t abandoned the ship long ago.

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

#724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like pure copium to me.

Well its happening anyway, and companies can face fines up to 20% of worldwide revenue if they don't comply.

you seem oddly excited about the prospect of an EU with no smartphones

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

#725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The apparent desire for paternalism unnerves me. Any time people are free to choose who they associate with, they run the risk of coming across bad actors who would scam them or worse. In most domains of life, we have special protections for the senile elderly and children but everybody else is given freedom and subsequently expected to develop and exercise a sense of good judgement, because freedom is more important…

> The apparent desire for paternalism unnerves me. I find the EU imposing these conditions, under threat of force, on Apple that sells a product that people are free to buy or not buy, much more paternalistic than anything Apple does.

You have a lot more freedom in the EU to switch countries than you do to switch phone ecosystems.

There are 27 countries you can freely move between. If you work in one and move to another your pension gets rerouted when you retire.

There are only two phone ecosystems. If you buy something in the Apple ecosystem, you don't suddenly have it rerouted to Android if you move.

The EU isn't threatening force. It's a civil issue. Apple can just not sell in Europe. And even if Apple can't use force, it's a lot more authoritarian.

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

#726
post #192

What HackerNews thinks will happen: "zomg, I will finally be able to run Arch on my iPhone!" What will actually happen: "honey, something is wrong with my phone, whenever I unlock it, a popup jumps up that says 'Please update the Adobe™ Updater™ to get up to date Adobe™ Software Updates', could you take a look at it?"

And then you can remove the Adobe™ Updater™ bloatware and install something else that doesn't nag you so.

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

#727
post #583

While this will put some pressure on Apple and Google, personally I still want a third choice of Smartphone Platform. People would immediately point to Microsoft being a possible third should they decide to do it, I am not looking forward to it as much considering Microsoft would be more of the same as current Apple and Google. In terms of consumer facing companies, it is sad there is not a single company in Silicon…

Microsoft already tried and failed. They have also ruined Nokia.

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

#728
post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and that unsecured Linux is destroying the world! It’s not about making products less secure. That’s what apple makes you wanna think. It’s about giving customers choice. They can stay in Apple ecosystem (I will for example). Or they can not. Companies like Apple will have to work much harder now, to give both users and developers enough value to justify being locked in.

> They can stay in Apple ecosystem Nope, Adobe will make sure all its apps require Adobe App Store. Same for Facebook with Whatsapp. No more stupid Apple store restrictions, yay!!

> Adobe will make sure all its apps require Adobe App Store

It seems like your defense of Apple is that other companies will be able to act like Apple.

I'd rather have multiple small masters which compete with each other than a single all powerful master.

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

#729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, just stay on the default settings then. This however isn't a reason for the rest of the world to accept this. And since the power in the market is highly concentrated and all of it is moving more and more in this direction, regulation enforces these alternative options now. All this does is regulate the power the provider of a product has over their customer. This does not ruin the walled garden for the…

That's fine, just stay on the default settings then. I agree in principle, but I worry that we end up in the situation where if you need to use a particular app, you can only get it from a third-party store that you don't trust. (Something gross like Facebook starting an app store.) Or course, this is mostly a result of Apple being greedy. If they had acted like a good steward of the platform rather than trying to ex…

> I worry that we end up in the situation where if you need to use a particular app, you can only get it from a third-party store that you don't trust.

This works both ways. Some people want to use iOS exclusive apps but can't justify buying an iPhone because of how restrictive it is. This act alleviates that.

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

#730

This is easily one of the most expansive Acts regarding computing devices passed in my lifetime. The summary is in the link. As an iPhone user, this will enable me to: * Install any software * Install any App Store and choose to make it default * Use third party payment providers and choose to make them default * Use any voice assistant and choose to make it default * User any browser and browser engine and choose to…

> Fines are up to 10% of global revenue for the first offense, and 20% for repeat offenses. For Alphabet (Google) the revenue distribution from 2015 to 2021 was approximately 33% for all of Europe, Middle-east, and Africa. It's unclear to me the actual European numbers since they are combined EMEA. For Apple in 2021 the revenue was approximately 23% for Europe (no middle-east or Africa). For Facebook in 2021 the reve…

Fines are "UP TO" 10% / 20% of global revenue. I doubt actual fines are going to be that high.

Also, it has to be global revenue, because otherwise they would just use funny accounting tricks to hide their revenue (they already do that).

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