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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

#561

Post by wasyl »

burnerthrow008 wrote: post #497
thrance wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an European, I heard that 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. I don't think our laws should focus on tech companies' freedom since it doesn't seem to improve the people's lives.

> As an European, I heard that 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck Yes, and we all declare bankruptcy every month, and charge $10,000 to our credit card to be allowed into the doctor's waiting room, where we announce our arrival by firing a gun in the air. Where do you guys hear this stuff?

The numbers are debatable as usual but they're not taken from thin air

> A 2023 survey conducted by Payroll.org highlighted that 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, a 6% increase from the previous year. In other words, more than three-quarters of Americans struggle to save or invest after paying for their monthly expenses.

> Similarly, a 2023 Forbes Advisor survey revealed that nearly 70% of respondents either identified as living paycheck to paycheck (40%) or—even more concerning—reported that their income doesn’t even cover their standard expenses (29%).

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/living-paycheck-to-pa...

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

#562

Post by wasyl »

burnerthrow008 wrote: post #497
thrance wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an European, I heard that 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. I don't think our laws should focus on tech companies' freedom since it doesn't seem to improve the people's lives.

> As an European, I heard that 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck Yes, and we all declare bankruptcy every month, and charge $10,000 to our credit card to be allowed into the doctor's waiting room, where we announce our arrival by firing a gun in the air. Where do you guys hear this stuff?

The numbers are debatable as usual but they're not taken from thin air

> A 2023 survey conducted by Payroll.org highlighted that 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, a 6% increase from the previous year. In other words, more than three-quarters of Americans struggle to save or invest after paying for their monthly expenses.

> Similarly, a 2023 Forbes Advisor survey revealed that nearly 70% of respondents either identified as living paycheck to paycheck (40%) or—even more concerning—reported that their income doesn’t even cover their standard expenses (29%).

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/living-paycheck-to-pa...

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

#563

Post by tcfhgj »

XCSme wrote: post #522
tcfhgj wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it matter?

People need to constantly buy stuff for the economy to keep growing, this is how the economy is designed.

At some point we have to deal with the limits to growth, indeed.

The economy should serve the people, not the way around.

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

#564

Post by tomjen3 »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #244
lolinder wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'll struggle to find people who are against the Digital Markets Act for this reason. It literally only targets the potential monopolists. I'm against the way it's being applied to Apple. I don't think that the government should dictate that consumers aren't allowed to choose a platform that's a locked down walled garden if that's what they want. We have platforms that aren't walled gardens (Android) that many of…

Going out of your way on the internet to defend apples right to take 30% of every sale on the app store is insane to me. Just how can you not see there's probably 20% of every purchase sitting on the table if competition was ever allowed to occur. Not to mention the simple freedom of choosing what you want to install yourself, and not just what Apple allows you to...

The DMA does not allow you to install what you want.

It does not apply to consoles.

It does make it possible for companies to keep some more money, but most importantly it allows them to sidestep the protections for my privacy that I pay a premium to Apple for.

A real DMA would force facebook, twitter, etc to open up for alternative clients. That would bring competition in and benefit the end user.

Not that whatever digital slot machnine company is allowed to keep a higher percentage of the diamonds they sell you in their free to pay game.

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

#565

Post by tcfhgj »

ripped_britches wrote: post #445
tcfhgj wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh no, companies can't manipulate people as easily and some will go bankrupt, because they can't give people as much FOMO and there will be less trash in the internet

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

#566

Post by tomjen3 »

echelon wrote: post #120
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a very real sense, the EU has ruled that Meta’s core business model is illegal. Is this actually bad?

You're free to not be a user, but millions of other people want it.

Possibly. Facebook has strong network effects. It is possible that nobody actually wants to be on Facebook.

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

#567

Post by quitit »

The most telling feature of the DMA is that it doesn't include Spotify.

Spotify would not be compliant under the DMA for the same reason why the EU has charged Meta with non-compliance:

>Under Article 5(2) of the DMA, gatekeepers must seek users’ consent for combining their personal data between designated core platform services and other services, and if a user refuses such consent, they should have access to a less personalised but equivalent alternative. Gatekeepers cannot make use of the service or certain functionalities conditional on users’ consent.

- Source: EC statement¹

However the EU doesn't deem there to be any gatekeepers for music.² YouTube has over 80 million music subscribers. To avoid this obvious conflict they label "YouTube" as a video sharing site, deliberately ignoring one of the largest drivers of youtube traffic is music videos. Something which Google themselves advertise.³

If the EU cared about privacy and user harm they'd make the DMA protections apply to every business, not just big foreign ones.

Spotify's ads website actually brags about how it targets and tracks users and the various 3rd party data companies they partner with to extend that beyond Spotify.⁴

It's clear as day that the EU doesn't care about user harm or privacy, they just want that money for themselves. A view that is buttressed by what they're trying to do to encrypted chat communications.

¹ https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...

² https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers_en

³ https://www.youtube.com/trends/records/

⁴ https://ads.spotify.com/en-US/goals/audience-targeting/ https://ads.spotify.com/en-US/partner-directory/

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

#568

Post by rsanek »

RamblingCTO wrote: post #556
cheptsov wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except EU doesn’t have big tech.

Ever heard of Spotify or SAP maybe?

those are tech companies, but aren't really considered big tech. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech

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

#569

Post by rsanek »

cqqxo4zV46cp wrote: post #516
refurb wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How important is technological industry? Pretty damn important I'd say if you're interested in economic growth and hence supporting your social safety net.

Big tech is not inherent in the concept of a tech industry. Big tech is like 6 companies that want to swallow the world. Not being able to separate these two concepts is grade school level literacy and critical thinking. It’s not acceptable to conflate them. It’s completely ridiculous.

how many other large eu based tech companies can we name? like 3 total?

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

#570

Post by aurareturn »

quitit wrote: post #567

The most telling feature of the DMA is that it doesn't include Spotify. Spotify would not be compliant under the DMA for the same reason why the EU has charged Meta with non-compliance: > Under Article 5(2) of the DMA, gatekeepers must seek users’ consent for combining their personal data between designated core platform services and other services, and if a user refuses such consent, they should have access to a les…

I thought it was common knowledge that EU regulations target big foreign companies while ignoring big domestic ones?

If they truly cared about monopolies/duopolies, they'd target LVMH, Luxottica.

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