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Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

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81–90 of 348 posts

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#81
post #41

I always scratch my head about articles that lump Meta, Apple, and Google together when it comes to regulations. They all have different problems that require different solutions. 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 plac…

I, on the other hand, have a lot more sympathy for Apple: Many highly successful people and many businesses have never owned any of there products. They are not a monopoly. Why can't market forces just regulate them ??

What choices do you have as an iPhone user to download apps from? Or as an iOS developer what choices do I have to distribute the said app?

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#82

Very valid points. In my view they miss the mark however. Blaming Apple for optimizing their platform model isn’t the problem, it became a problem. Imagine 2007 and the following years already with the EU act in full effect. AppStore would be dead on arrival. In my view Apple’s AppStore went from feature some people have when they buy a smartphone to necessity. 2007 and even 2016 was a perfect time to opt for a live…

> AppStore would be dead on arrival. Yes, exactly! That's the point. The mobile ecosystem would look heaps better without it.

Honestly I don't think most users care, at all. The complaints regarding the AppStore comes from a few tech companies and a small percentage of highly technical users. For everyone else it's fine. The EU mandating alternative stores or side-load won't significantly hurt Apples bottom line.

The most valid complaint, and this is something Apple needs to address world view, is the move towards in-app purchases and subscriptions. I believe that is due to a limitation in the AppStore, where Apple isn't allowing upgrade pricing, but allowing subscriptions to enable features. In-app purchases is destroying the AppStore. You could say: Well that would be fixed with an alternative store, but I have serious doubts about other app store operators not being tempted by the recurring revenue as well.

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#83
post #67
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I agree its a good idea to not track personal data, but thats by far not the only rule in GDPR

What other rule do you find impossible? Data portability? The users right to delete data? Data processing agreements? Data security? Article 30? They are all fairly trivial unless you do shady stuff really. Step one if is really looking at what you process as stipulated by article 30, a lot of the other stuff is much easier after that. One of my roles is as a DPO in a bank in Europe, and it's far from impossible to c…

> What other rule do you find impossible?

you will never get specifics out of these guys. They will lead you down a circuitous thread of unspecified fears until it's clear that their business model is to abuse customer data even as they'll avoid actually saying so.

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#84

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".

The GDPR is a nightmare. So much paperwork, so much money down the drain. Only for the receptionist still yelling your diagnosis through the doctors office.

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#85
post #72
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because personal computer market (let’s face it: the primary or only personal computing device of most people today is a phone or a tablet) are a duopoly, with the other actor also being one of the monopolistic tech giants.

Just to emphasise, the mobile device market IS a duopoly because you may have multiple sources for Android phone hardware, but for software you have exactly two options: iOS and Android.

Yes, thanks. I thought that was clear because the HW is not relevant in any way to the concerns at hand, but apparently a clarification was in order.

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#86
post #34

I’m an Apple fan and I keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in Apple stock, and I still hope we at least get side loading out of all this. I do not believe this would be in any way detrimental to Apple - most people don’t give a shit. But for me and others like me it’d be pretty neat to do on my iPhone and iPad what I can already do on my Mac: install my own software that is not arbitrarily time limited.

Hope? You should demand it. You’ve already dipped money into it.

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#87
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are taking the side of a 3 trillion dollor consumer goods company's bottom line, rather than 500 million people's right to choice and privacy. You do realise that, don't you?

It's governments vs corporations; the 500 million people aren't actually being represented in either camp. Being a subject is little better than being a consumer, and in some ways much worse.

I can vote for who decides things in the EU.

I have no say in how Google, for example, does their business. I'm way too poor for that. I'd need literal billions of stock to get Satya Nadella's phone number =)

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#88
Is this "Big Tech" or is it mainly just Apple throwing it's toys out of the pram because it's not getting it's own way after years of acting aloof?

Yeah Facebook are jerks but they've always been jerks... But what about Amazon or MS or Google or Netflix or others? Are they acting in the same way? The article seems fairly light on any details of the people we'd traditionally think of for "Big Tech"?

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are taking the side of a 3 trillion dollor consumer goods company's bottom line, rather than 500 million people's right to choice and privacy. You do realise that, don't you?

[flagged]

As a Brit who moved to Germany rather than the US as a result of 2016's Investigatory Powers Act and Brexit referendum results, I am not motivated by such things.

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#90
post #13

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.

We have at least 10k worth of Apple hardware at home I fucking dare them to do it.
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