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The EU will win this if they want. Their trump card is that, actually, making the EU not a viable market for the most annoying US tech companies would be a huge win for many of their constituents.
Apple should play their Trump card and threaten to pull out of the EU. The EU would blink first because the public backlash would be career ending.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> AppStore would be dead on arrival. Yes, exactly! That's the point. The mobile ecosystem would look heaps better without it.
We have the world without it available for inspection. The Android ecosystem is a shambling mess compared to the quality that is availabe in the Apple Playstore. It does look heaps better on many dimensions.
The EU will win this if they want. Their trump card is that, actually, making the EU not a viable market for the most annoying US tech companies would be a huge win for many of their constituents.
Apple should play their Trump card and threaten to pull out of the EU. The EU would blink first because the public backlash would be career ending.
The EU will win this if they want. Their trump card is that, actually, making the EU not a viable market for the most annoying US tech companies would be a huge win for many of their constituents.
Apple should play their Trump card and threaten to pull out of the EU. The EU would blink first because the public backlash would be career ending.
Do European countries hold themselves and the local companies to the same standards, respect their citizens and their privacy rights?
I remember a French institution could not buy our product, because they had a contract with a local manufacturer. They explained to us that they are obliged to buy from this company, or otherwise go through a complicated process of explaining to the government AND the company why that company doesn’t meet their needs. Sounded absurd! They had to sort of get the permission of the competitor company!
The EU will win this if they want. Their trump card is that, actually, making the EU not a viable market for the most annoying US tech companies would be a huge win for many of their constituents.
Apple should play their Trump card and threaten to pull out of the EU. The EU would blink first because the public backlash would be career ending.
Yet they'll pull out of EU. Sure.
Apple - consumers give the company for hardware which is locked into a closed ecosystem. Apple extracts extra revenue by enforcing this closed ecosystem. There can be no competition other than not purchasing their hardware in the first place.
Google - consumers sometimes give them money (for both hardware and services) which Google then uses to push their other products to the detriment of their competitors. Due to Google's size, the competition is at a massive disadvantage. Also, given that most consumers don't give them money, Google needs to make money off of their consumers and the most profitable method is to monetize PII.
Meta - consumers basically never give them money (excluding Oculus) so Meta needs to make money off of their consumers. The most profitable method is to monetize PII.
I have a little more sympathy for Google and Meta's situation as the EU wants them to maintain their free services while simultaneously reducing their ability to monetize their most valuable asset, consumers' PII (note that PII ultimately belongs to the consumer but it's still the thing that the companies use to make money). There needs to be some sort of happy medium here when people want something without paying for it but also don't want what's valuable about them being a user - their PII - to be monetized.
To be clear, these multi billion/trillion dollar companies don't need anyone defending them. However, it would be interesting to see what the EU's position would be if Meta started as an EU company.
I'm in favour of opening up platforms and interoperability, but not the GDPR. Maybe in this case, "an enemy is an enemy of a friend".
I just hope negative effects of (in my opinion) overregulation wont hurt the EUs economy too badly, but that wont be visible for another couple of decades
Pay or Okay is reasonable to some extent (depending on the amount). Do European countries hold themselves and the local companies to the same standards, respect their citizens and their privacy rights? I remember a French institution could not buy our product, because they had a contract with a local manufacturer. They explained to us that they are obliged to buy from this company, or otherwise go through a complicat…
I doubt this is a EU thing. It's due to exclusive contracts/licenses. This happens everywhere?