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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

#571

Post by layer8 »

maxerickson wrote: post #405
toomuchtodo wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand you were rebutting OPs point that not every tech company is a capital furnace, but when framed in this manner, this sounds like something to be solved, not something to be proud of. That’s the difference between the EU and the US, and there is a strong case to be made that life is better in the EU when observing majorities. Who is benefiting from Apple’s profits being the size of a small country’s GDP? N…

Apple makes a lot of profit because their products provide a lot of value. Do you think that if you compare the profit that Apple makes to the value that that users get that Apple has the larger share of it? To a disturbing degree?

> Apple makes a lot of profit because their products provide a lot of value.

That is a non-sequitur.

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

#572

Post by fragmede »

rsanek wrote: post #569
cqqxo4zV46cp wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Accenture, Siemens, Nokia, Ericsson, Capgemini, Atos, Dassault Systems, Bosch, Ahold Delhaize, Dassault Systèmes? maybe little known outside the EU, but the EU has something like 20% of the world's software developers.

GP will have to explain to me, at a grade school level, how they want to differentiate big tech and BIG tech.

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

#573

Post by layer8 »

cheptsov wrote: post #81
kredd wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. Unless I misunderstood your point it sounds like, what you guys have right now is good for people and their lives. Isn't that the entire point of life? I can see why general population might support it, while us techies would be pushing for deregulation and less of work-life balance. So my understanding of these articles is "it might be bad in a long term!", but Europe is still big enough market for all…

Europe is an amazing place, which is why I moved here in the first place. But for techies, it can be pretty challenging. The issue isn't with the techies themselves, though. The problem is that the environment here holds back big tech, making Europe heavily dependent on the US.

The mistake is making oneself dependent on big tech in the first place.

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

#574

Post by hepinhei »

The article seems unfounded to me. We need regulation because companies are gaining more power, money, and data. Social networks are shaping entire societies to behave in different ways. Android is able to comply with these rules when implementing AI why not Apple? Late? Poor implementation? . However, I hope that movements like this will push the EU to create conditions and finance channels to enable competition in the tech space. I agree that Europe is lagging more and more behind, but Apple not releasing their products here is not the problem. Not having big tech companies is the problem

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

#575

Post by amai »

DataDaemon wrote: post #6

Europe is a place to take social benefits; there is no tech, no innovation. It's better to sit on the couch and watch Netflix than start a business. There is too much risk, too many taxes, and too many regulations.

No innovation in Europe? Who created Linux? Python? ARM? ASML? Outside of IT: BioNTech (first Covid mRNA vaccine), Ozempic from Novo Nordisk? A fee seconds of googling is enough to show how ridiculous this claim is.

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

#576

Post by NekkoDroid »

phyzix5761 wrote: post #125
jmclnx wrote: post #19

Because the EU values their citizens privacy tech may leave. Personally I could live with that if that is the result of my privacy being protected.

If the EU cares about its citizen's privacy why does it do everything in its power to spy on its own citizens?

Are you talking about the "Chat Control" that keeps on getting shut down?

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

#577

Post by treprinum »

echoangle wrote: post #558
treprinum wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US has fewer inhabitants than EU (342M vs 449M) yet keeps up with China economically in absolute terms.

And you think they will manage to keep up in the future? You don’t think china will be 1.5x the US in 26 years?

The point is that since 2008 US was able to keep up with rapidly expanding China whereas EU stood still. We are discussing future of EU here.

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

#578

Post by Someone »

ADeerAppeared wrote: post #342
Someone wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’re demanding that Meta provide free full services without personalized ads or a monthly fee for users Where are they demanding that? Reading https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_24_... , their complaints seem to be that Facebook - cannot call the ‘with adverts’ version ‘free’ - makes it too difficult for consumers to find out what exactly they give to facebook in exchange for this ‘free’ se…

> Am I reading the wrong page? Yes. That's a separate investigation; "Today's action focuses specifically on the assessment of Meta's practices under EU consumer law and is distinct from the ongoing ... , and the assessment by the Irish Data Protection Commission under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)." The illegality of "Pay or Consent" is a GDPR thing. The EDPB ruling on that issue is here: https://www…

Thanks. They avoid saying Meta should have a free option without personalized ads; they only say Meta should consider it. I wonder what other options Meta has, though, apart from leaving the market.

Maybe they’re thinking of Meta making Facebook paid for everybody, but giving users the option of getting paid for getting personalized ads? Apart from the wording, I don’t see how that’s different from “It’s free, but if you don’t want personalized have to pay”, though.

It would be different in that it makes it more explicit that users are selling something, though, so maybe it would be enough in the eyes of the EU?

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

#579

Post by onel »

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.

Yeah, but the pie did not remain the same and Europe's slice shrunk. Some parts of the pie just grew faster. It doesn't mean Europe went backwards

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

#580

Post by onel »

cheptsov wrote: post #189
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…

Except EU doesn’t have big tech.

How is that a bad thing?
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