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Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

foreignpolicy.com

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Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#41

Post by jeremyjh »

aranelsurion wrote: post #33
kredd wrote: post #10

I might be talking out of my depth, as I don’t live in Europe, but I’ve heard the same paraphrased headlines like these since at least 2016. Has status quo been swayed one way or another since then? Theoretically speaking, wouldn’t legislating away the top US players open the market to the local companies a la Naver in SK, WeChat in China or Line in Japan? I understand I’m dumbing it down, but assuming such legislati…

I don't get this article. Title is "Europe Is in Danger of Regulating Its Tech Market Out of Existence". But then the subtitle says "Poorly designed laws are forcing *global firms* to leave." (emphasis mine) Then you see a picture of an Apple Vision Pro. I've only skimmed through the article and there are 11 mentions of Apple and 12 mentions of Meta, then some mentions of X and such. These aren't even "global" firms,…

You seem to have confused "tech market" with "tech industry".

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#42

Post by mensetmanusman »

preya2k wrote: post #14

Oh the irony of this article being covered by a consent screen that starts with: „We & our 735 technology partners ask you to consent to the use of cookies to store and access personal data on your device.“

If only the media had consolidated/unionized to be at the size scale of tech companies extracting advertising value from their reporting…

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#43

Post by LorenPechtel »

They have some valid gripes but then they get to:

Or consider the recent charges the EU levied against X. Under Elon Musk’s ownership, anyone can now purchase a blue check with a paid subscription, whereas blue checks were previously reserved for notable figures. EU regulators singled out the new system for blue checks as a deceptive business practice that violates the bloc’s Digital Services Act.

What are they thinking?? The blue check mark is supposed to mean verified. They changed it to simply mean paid subscription. They took a symbol of trust and utterly ripped out the trust part. I don't care how much you publicize it, that's not acceptable.

Would he be ok with my going and purchasing a SSL certificate for www.x.com???

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#44

Post by amidang »

lolinder wrote: post #21
preya2k wrote: post #14

Oh the irony of this article being covered by a consent screen that starts with: „We & our 735 technology partners ask you to consent to the use of cookies to store and access personal data on your device.“

Normally I wouldn't upvote a reply like this, but here in the US I got this one instead: > There appears to be a technical issue with your browser > This issue is preventing our website from loading properly. Please review the following troubleshooting tips or contact us at support@foreignpolicy.com. I had to disable Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection in order to proceed. This is the first time since that feature…

[flagged]

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#45

Post by lolinder »

golergka wrote: post #37
lolinder wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally I wouldn't upvote a reply like this, but here in the US I got this one instead: > There appears to be a technical issue with your browser > This issue is preventing our website from loading properly. Please review the following troubleshooting tips or contact us at support@foreignpolicy.com. I had to disable Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection in order to proceed. This is the first time since that feature…

Do you think it was deliberate or just a general reaction to an uncaught exception somewhere in the ad part of the app?

This is the code that does it:

    // The tinypass.min.js script was blocked due to a browser content filter
    console.log('Piano Script was blocked');
    // Show error modal to user
    FP.Utils.Piano.showBrowserCompatibilityErrorModal();
Looks like the code comes from their analytics provider: https://piano.io/

Link to the source: https://foreignpolicy.com/_static/??-eJy1lNtuwjAMhl9oIYCQGBf...

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#46

Post by jasonvorhe »

TekMol wrote: post #40

I think it already did. I am an avid reader of Show HNs. And I remember many that became successful businesses. But not a single European one. All the "startups" that I see here in Europe are very classical businesses. They build software tools for local enterprises. It seems nobody in Europe is building something for the open web. Maybe because nobody here understands all the regulations that come with it. The GDPR…

That's probably not a regulation issue that's mostly hitting US big tech, though.

European schools and universities tend to drill people towards employment and not to take too many risks so starting companies isn't as widespread and considered too bureaucratic.

Then there's the issue of multiple currencies and not every checkout SaaS supporting all of them and their various options of payment (afaik), which limits reach. That's a problem the US, India, China and Russia don't have.

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#47

Post by spongebobstoes »

zug_zug wrote: post #38
spongebobstoes wrote: post #17

The real problem is that the requirements for a social platform are getting very onerous, to the point that it takes at least several engineers working full time on the problem. That really hurts a startup's ability to initially launch in the market, especially one with less VC money. (Certain BigCo new products can be thought of as a startup too, with limited budgets.) This doesn't just affect social media companies…

Is that true though? Are there any 5-person startups with < 10k users getting sued/shutdown by this regulation?

That data point is very hard to provide any evidence for, and not sufficient to draw any conclusions from. For example, what if the company was never started? What if they pivoted after speaking to a lawyer?

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#48

Post by threeseed »

chmod775 wrote: post #28
jjtheblunt wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how much of gdp is facilitated through the search abilities of meta and google, though?

Are you just counting on others being too exhausted to bring yet another moot argument to its predetermined conclusion? I'll finish it to save everyone some time: A: how much of gdp is facilitated through the search abilities of meta and google, though? B: It doesn't matter. A: Why not? B: There will be someone else who is willing to play by the local rules fulfilling the same function in their place, just like in ma…

> There will be someone else who is willing to play by the local rules

Building a competitive search engine or AI model requires VC investment.

It's simply too expensive to do otherwise.

VC investment requires a vibrant startup ecosystem, well crafted regulations and a risk-tolerant culture.

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#49

Post by guax »

threeseed wrote: post #30
throwaway14356 wrote: post #25

while we use it a lot apple is not our tech market.

No but between Apple and Google they are the foundation of mobility. And if they are not going to bring AI SDKs to the EU because of the regulatory risk then an entire class of potential startups will never exist.

There as much ai shenanigans going on here in Europe as in US. DMA rules do not apply to startups. GDPR is good and stings larger corporations more than smaller ones.

Apple and Google are holding a beta risky feature and leveraging it as reason to get some sympathy.

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#50

Post by nine_k »

preya2k wrote: post #14

Oh the irony of this article being covered by a consent screen that starts with: „We & our 735 technology partners ask you to consent to the use of cookies to store and access personal data on your device.“

While adtech may be the most profitable part of tech industry, it's by far not the only part. Everything from advanced electronics to genomics to super-strong materials to reusable spacecraft is the "technology sector", and its parts are tightly intertwined.
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