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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

#271

Post by autoexec »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #260
autoexec wrote: post #180

The EU is free to pass laws preventing gatekeepers and insisting on interoperability requirements and Apple is free to refuse to do that and not offer their non-competitive gatekeeping products in the EU. There's zero reason to think that this will mean the EU won't have a tech market. It just won't have one that includes Apple products which refuse to follow the law. Seems like a massive win for the EU, and because…

> The EU is free to pass laws preventing gatekeepers I'm intentionally taking this out of context to point out that laws can act as gatekeepers and help preserve incumbent's positions. Stuff like "minimum service requirement" which require new entrants to front a massive initial investment, preventing them from getting a foothold (see: France telecom landscape in the 90s-'10s). GDPR was crafted by the likes of Google…

It's absolutely true that regulations can be written by corporations to keep out competitors. Regulations are just tools. They can be used to protect and benefit the majority or to further enrich a small number of wealthy and powerful individuals. I haven't seen anything to convince me that the Digital Markets Act was written to hurt competition at the expense of the public.

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

#272

Post by threeseed »

wmf wrote: post #94
threeseed wrote: post #18

[flagged]

Short of the EU directly designing products there's always going to be ambiguity. Most of the "controversy" over GDPR and DMA appears to be completely artificial and caused by malicious compliance.

DMA was specifically designed to be flexible i.e. ambiguous:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4411743

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

#273

Post by orbital-decay »

Didn't US lose most of its production capability for the same reason? US protected its workers' rights, but there are other places with cheap labor treating the workers like shit, so businesses are using factories in other places, which then build massive expertise at production.

This is similar. EU is trying to protect the rights of its citizens for good, but there are also places like US where rights are less protected, or not at all. (and frankly, a sizeable amount of people there don't even give a crap about rights that seem ephemeral for them, like privacy). So naturally businesses go to those places.

It's not poorly designed laws, or at least not just it. It's also a tragedy of commons in a global economy, moving too fast vs too slow, and many other things.

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

#274

Post by uncanneyvalley »

ktosobcy wrote: post #150
lolinder wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but the EU and the citizens thereof should then accept that Meta or other similar companies in similar situations can't operate within the EU. The EU regulators and select HN users might be okay with that, but EU citizens on average probably won't be.

> No, but the EU and the citizens thereof should then accept that Meta or other similar companies in similar situations can't operate within the EU. I wouldn't mind if FB left...

WhatsApp though?

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

#275

Post by snowpid »

In my little buble hanging around the Berlin start up scene (not founder) I've never heard about complains for DMA, Ai Act etc. (only GDPr for medical stuff , but that is tackled by new laws... With less privacy).

Current stuff (other mentions): Germany's state of digitalisation and bureaucracy, investments.

So this guy clearly gives an lousy tech lobbyist .

Giving his initiative DMA is certainly pro market oriented. Why does he have a problem with it?

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

#276

Post by yencabulator »

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…

> 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.

There are only 19 companies in the world that are required to comply with the strict rules. I think they can pay those "several engineers" from the money they make in EU. This is not about startups, and this is not about launching.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Services_Act#Large_onl...

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

#277

Post by echoangle »

treprinum wrote: post #194
kazen44 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how is europe's economy terrible? by what metric? considering that the EU still has a very large part of the global economy, especially compared to its population and size. Also, the tech industry is not the only part of the economy. large parts of the EU are absolutely massive in terms of industrial machinery and scientific companies. People on HN always seem to forget that a lot of money can be made by making somet…

40 years ago Europe (without former Warsaw Pact countries) accounted for 25% of global trade. These days it's ~12% and dropping. Since 2008 there is no meaningful GDP growth (1-2%) whereas US and China exploded in that time. India is on track to surpass EU by 2050. All that will be left is a large open-air museum.

India, a country with 1.4 billion people and growing, overtaking the EU with 0.44 billion people in 26 years (!) isn’t the flex you think it is.

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

#278

Post by tcfhgj »

echoangle wrote: post #261
sangnoir wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple's walled garden produces a lot of real benefits for its customers that are part of what make it successful, and dismantling their walled garden is going to harm consumers. What are those benefits, and why would they evaporate if Apple adds an "Install from other sources" toggle? If you want to exclusively benefit from Apple's discernment, keep that toggle off and stay in the walled garden.If the benefits are…

The problem is that having the option of exiting the walled garden kills the garden. As soon as the most important apps aren’t available on the apple App Store any more, everyone will have to exit the garden. You can argue about the pros and cons of that, but you can’t deny that this has an effect on every apple user, not just the ones that choose to exit.

People do have to exit the garden as much as people have to buy apple devices

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

#279

Post by lolinder »

sangnoir wrote: post #240
lolinder wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, sure, you could always argue that about anything, but that's not a refutation of this particular argument in this particular situation. Apple's walled garden produces a lot of real benefits for its customers that are part of what make it successful, and dismantling their walled garden is going to harm consumers. I would never pick an Apple device for myself. I would also never recommend an Android phone to my m…

> Apple's walled garden produces a lot of real benefits for its customers that are part of what make it successful, and dismantling their walled garden is going to harm consumers. What are those benefits, and why would they evaporate if Apple adds an "Install from other sources" toggle? If you want to exclusively benefit from Apple's discernment, keep that toggle off and stay in the walled garden.If the benefits are…

> If the benefits are so great, then surely everyone will choose to stay in the walled garden.

Surely you've seen enough of the free market to know that this is baloney. The instant that the walled garden is gone abusive apps (Facebook et al) will start ushering users away from it into their own, abusive paths as the only way to install. And once the big abusive apps have started the trend, the walled garden is effectively gone. Businesses don't choose regulation if they can help it.

The only reason we don't see this with Android and Google Play is because Google hardly has any rules at all about what can go on the Play Store.

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

#280

Post by dragandj »

bogantech wrote: post #225
tuna74 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most devs in Sweden would be very happy to get US wages so this feels pretty much like bullshit. Also, Spotify could open offices in other places in Sweden (or Europe) if they want to be in places with lower CoL than Stockholm.

I can't see how the wages have anything to do with the points in the parent comment but you're never going to get US wages in Sweden as long as the unions are involved

What stops Spotify from paying USA wages in Stocholm or other cities in Europe that offer good quality of living and thus appealing to software developers? Software developer unions are going to say NO? Do such unions exist? Can they control software devs?
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