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Apple to EU: "Go fuck yourself"

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Re: Apple to EU: "Go fuck yourself"

#61
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love for there to be a vibrant European tech scene. But these same sort of business-hostile behavior is exactly why there isn't a European version of Silicon Valley.

We don't need a silicon valley. No need for a ultra concentrated tech valley. We have many small tech valleys all over Europe. With many many good, honest, privacy respecting companies. We just don't have that unicorn culture. But do we need highly overvalued tech businesses?

Who wants that? A market made up of clustered, small-time players that don’t have to live up to standards, and don’t have their hide in the game?

A market made up of clones and forks, all worse than the prop competition.

Re: Apple to EU: "Go fuck yourself"

#62

These issues need good unbiased reporting, and as much as I love Cory, his reporting is all but unbiased. It's activism. Which is perfectly ok, and extremely important, but in this case it reeks of an extremism that is damaging to the cause itself. The truth is that decrying things like Apple's splash screen about the use of alternative stores, for example, is ridiculous. Apple has all the legal rights to do that, an…

> Apple has all the legal rights to do that

Law doesn't say what's morally right.

> I personally don't let tech unsavvy people from the family use anything but the App Store and iPhone

Do you also make sure they can only access Apple-certified websites in the browser? No? Sounds pretty unsafe.

> I know they would be easily scammed by shady apps that don't have to pass through the App Store's review process

Both Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store have hosted malware in the past. It's quite rare for the average user to even try installing Amazon's third-party appstore, let alone a random .apk from the internet, it's about having the option to be less dependent. Sure some users will be negatively affected, just like some people could be convinced to put their iPhone in the microwave to recharge the battery, but if you take that seriously you might as well ban knives.

> That is clearly a monopolistic advantage to Apple, but the alternative is equally bad

You need to be a lot more convincing to tell me that something is as bad as a monopoly.

Re: Apple to EU: "Go fuck yourself"

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm counting down the days like it's Christmas.

You want iPhones and iPads and MacBooks to be discontinued from the European market?

Not just iDevices, but any device that can not be fully controlled by the owner. Hardware should only be allowed to be sold if we are free to install/reinstall the software as we see fit.

Re: Apple to EU: "Go fuck yourself"

#64
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need a silicon valley. No need for a ultra concentrated tech valley. We have many small tech valleys all over Europe. With many many good, honest, privacy respecting companies. We just don't have that unicorn culture. But do we need highly overvalued tech businesses?

Who wants that? A market made up of clustered, small-time players that don’t have to live up to standards, and don’t have their hide in the game? A market made up of clones and forks, all worse than the prop competition.

Not sure if you are sarcastic. But that is exactly the reason why we have such a abundance of high quality products and depend way less on mid quality products of big brands.

Alone food quality is on a whole different level in Europe, exactly because we have, allow and welcome small time players reinventing the market.

Re: Apple to EU: "Go fuck yourself"

#65
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

7% is $26.8 billion for last year.

So? It's still 7%. What happens when compliance or fees costs them $30 billions? Those go up with scale too.

Apple reported 30bn net sales in Europe in the last quarter: the second biggest region after the US. Although some of that'll be driven by non iOS stuff, we know that's the main earnings driver.

In a future where Apple have withdrawn the app store, who in the EU is going to buy an iOS device?

Sorry, but the idea that they'd be able to justify pulling out to shareholders over this is pure fantasy.

edit: source - https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2024-q1/FY24_Q1_Consol...

Re: Apple to EU: "Go fuck yourself"

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At some point apple will just leave the market. maybe a good thing. yanis varoufakis said EU had become irrelevant in tech. more investment can go to local tech instead of US monopolies.

I would love for there to be a vibrant European tech scene. But these same sort of business-hostile behavior is exactly why there isn't a European version of Silicon Valley.

> I would love for there to be a vibrant European tech scene.

But there is ? Go to Paris, Berlin, Lisboa, Barcelona, ... There is a lot of start-ups, incubator, investor, meet-ups, conference, etc. The EU has a very vibrant tech scene. It is probably more distributed than the U.S, by nature, and not on the same scale. But acting as if the E.U is some sort of ludite, back water, hostile to business, is just plain wrong and huge exaggeration.

Re: Apple to EU: "Go fuck yourself"

#67
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

7% is $26.8 billion for last year.

So? It's still 7%. What happens when compliance or fees costs them $30 billions? Those go up with scale too.

Apple has shown with China that they're perfectly okay with localized rules in their systems. If you think they wouldn't make a few EU-only changes to preserve a whopping 7% of the revenue I don't know what to tell you. 7% is much more than you make it seem, and actually as someone else pointed out the real number is higher because without App Store the iPhones are worthless.

Re: Apple to EU: "Go fuck yourself"

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want iPhones and iPads and MacBooks to be discontinued from the European market?

I completely don't mind. The people who still want to buy Apple can just do a direct import themselves. Probably AliExpress will even offer to do it for you, just like they do for other non-EU companies that refuse to play by EU rules, e.g. Xaomi.

Xiaomi does sell in the EU with a EEA specific rom.

Re: Apple to EU: "Go fuck yourself"

#69
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not true at all

You're free to think otherwise, but this is what I've been repeatedly told by entrepreneurs in Europe (who mostly copy US ideas), and europeans living in Silicon Valley (who came here to innovate in ways they can't back home).

They can't make money like they do in the US, but I'd argue that good innovation - that increases the welfare of the people and is meant to bring universal progress - still is more abundant in Europe than in SV.

Re: Apple to EU: "Go fuck yourself"

#70
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not true at all

You're free to think otherwise, but this is what I've been repeatedly told by entrepreneurs in Europe (who mostly copy US ideas), and europeans living in Silicon Valley (who came here to innovate in ways they can't back home).

That's a strong selection bias because you'll never meet people who stay in Europe because they like running a business there.
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