Good.
Tech needs to slow down; neither society has caught up, nor quality controls.
Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence
441–450 of 761 posts
Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence
#442I think it should be remembered that the personalized ads are not just valuable for ad platforms - most of the personalization value actually accrues to advertisers themselves, who basically represent the entire economy.
EU regulators think their enemy is big American tech companies, but they are hurting their domestic advertisers and domestic economies even more.
I am saying this as someone who hates seeing ads and uses adblock, but I greatly appreciate the societal value.
We should be making laws that foster competition and safety. I struggle to see how cross-site tracking and personalized advertising by itself is anti-competitive or unsafe. The bigger issues that need to be solved on these platforms are gatekeeper monopolies, social division, and mental health.
Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence
#443"Europeans could end up living in an online backwater with out-of-date phones, cut off from the rest of the world's search engines and social media sites, unable to even access high-performance computer chips." Sounds like a paradise. More healthy lifestyle. For most people much of this stuff is unnecessary. If one wants to live life "online", glued a screen digesting garbage and propaganda 24/7, then one can relocat…
It’s a short term paradise. You’re not going to be able to keep it that way when the rest of the world is more technologically advanced and you slip into poverty.
Exactly my thought here. Such a privileged view of the world to not appreciate the luxuries that internet technologies have bestowed us.
Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence
#444"Europeans could end up living in an online backwater with out-of-date phones, cut off from the rest of the world's search engines and social media sites, unable to even access high-performance computer chips." Sounds like a paradise. More healthy lifestyle. For most people much of this stuff is unnecessary. If one wants to live life "online", glued a screen digesting garbage and propaganda 24/7, then one can relocat…
What an interesting point of view. Very European. I wonder what will those Europeans do that do need the high-performance computer chips to create something new, to innovate.
They will probably move to those whacked out societies.
Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence
#445Earlier quoted context omitted.
What exactly do you mean by "targeted advertising"? I'm guessing you probably mean "behavioral advertising", which is a subset of "targeted advertising". Targeted advertising includes contextual advertising (e.g., a company putting an ad for their bird watching binoculars on a bird watching blog) and I'm having trouble thinking of any reason to ban that.
I'd even go to banning all commercial ads, like several cities have done offline. Reasons? Click bait, boosts consumerism, ads imply essentially a tax for everyone (remember that ads have to be paid by the consumers), CEO spam, annoying, environmental costs
You should ask an economist to model this scenario for you and then see if you still feel this way.
Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence
#446I think it should be remembered that the personalized ads are not just valuable for ad platforms - most of the personalization value actually accrues to advertisers themselves, who basically represent the entire economy. EU regulators think their enemy is big American tech companies, but they are hurting their domestic advertisers and domestic economies even more. I am saying this as someone who hates seeing ads and…
With ads there is incentive for tech companies to harvest more and more data points for advertisers to use their magic orbs to find out whether you like Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi more. This in turn leads to powerful and concerning levels of understanding of a certain individuals personality and worse, behavior, that allows them to exploit those flaws in your personality, or exploit your emotion more than a billboard ever could.
On top of this, it creates an unregulated sky-is-the-limit 3rd party economy of data brokers who will sell these bulk collections of data to whoever coughs up the money for it. Enter in governmental intelligence agencies, there now is a concern of governments either sidestepping laws on lawful intelligence collection or outright breaking them, as the NSA and FBI have already admitted too if I recall correctly.
Edit: I'd also like to say, can you imagine how the intelligence agencies would pressure their legislators during attempts of reforming data brokers? "You can't take this away! We stopped this attack from happening with this! If you take this away, you'll cause 9/11 2.0!" That's exactly what they did for the FISA re-authorization this year in the US.
Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence
#447Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Not to mention the simple freedom of choosing what you want to install yourself, and not just what Apple allows you to... I have the freedom to install whatever I want. I get that freedom by using Linux and Android. I choose to have that freedom by selecting platforms that provide it. Many HN users seem to want all the benefits of Apple's approach with none of the downsides, and it doesn't work that way. Apple is w…
The Apple are trying to hijack the ecosystem of free competition and open market.
Apple is providing an entry into the free smartphone market that is a closed system with a highly controlled and curated software ecosystem. That is their product, that's what they offer.
It's no different than Nintendo's entry into the game console market being what it is—some people will choose that experience because what it offers is valuable for them.
For myself, I'm an Android phone user and a PC gamer, but just because I wouldn't choose those experiences for myself doesn't mean I begrudge their existence.
Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence
#448I don't live in Europe, but wish we had these sorts of regulations in the US. If tech companies cannot provide us a means to control our personal information, and require us to be locked into their gatekeep-y, nanny-state, walled gardens and submit to using locked-down devices that don't actually obey what we want them to do, then those tech companies should not exist. I've gotten a little bit of a taste of some of t…
IMHO the problem has been that FAANG has not been regulated enough. The sheer size of these companies and their market share means there's little chance of competition from anywhere.
Though TBF when it comes to poorly thought out regulation, the amount of human time lost to clicking cookie consent/reject screens surely has to be a net loss to society.
Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence
#449They 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 think…
Don't be naive. It was never a symbol of trust. At most it was a symbol of prominence or notability as decided by a biased, unaccountable group of Twitter employees. Many of the old blue check mark accounts routinely posted inaccurate information or outright lies. The new X Community Notes system is far superior for establishing trust. https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/biden-clai... https://www.bloomb…
By "the new X community notes system" do you mean the same one that existed and was entirely developed before Elon bought Twitter?
Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence
#450Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s a short term paradise. You’re not going to be able to keep it that way when the rest of the world is more technologically advanced and you slip into poverty.
Exactly my thought here. Such a privileged view of the world to not appreciate the luxuries that internet technologies have bestowed us.
It's also naive in that they somehow think they wouldn't get invaded the second some dictator decides they want some lebensraum. You can't have an entire continent (save Poland, Finland, Britain, France, and a handful of others) more or less ignore defense (via technological advancement) and hope to keep pax liberalism