Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

ca.finance.yahoo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 635 posts

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#341

Post by jakob_endler »

walkingthisquai wrote: post #322
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #238

US officials and businessmen keep on repeating the same thing: > The European Commission is attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards. But this is wildly untrue. The EU isn't hand-picking individual organisations and fining them because they're American, they're fining them because they're in breach of existing legislation.…

Well... Though I agree with you in principle, the DMA does target specific gatekeeper companies and the criteria for these were set conveniently to ensure no EU company is regulated by it. So I can see their point a little

thats only kinda right. The DMA does include booking.com as a gatekeeper, which is european. But most gatekeepers (except booking and tiktok) are US-based

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#342

Post by Jensson »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #288
myrmidon wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not so clear. Appstore revenue is ~ $100 billion/y, but Apple makes less than 30% from that. So the question is: Would more convincing compliance have cost Apple more than single digit percentage decreases in Appstore sales? Comparing the F-Droid vs Playstore situation, this seems unlikely to me.

Apple’s take is 30%, but they have expenses that have to be covered by that. The profit if any would be much less than $30bn.

> The profit if any would be much less than $30bn.

It doesn't cost that much to maintain and run the appstore, it is almost all profits.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#343

Post by radlad »

walkingthisquai wrote: post #322
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #238

US officials and businessmen keep on repeating the same thing: > The European Commission is attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards. But this is wildly untrue. The EU isn't hand-picking individual organisations and fining them because they're American, they're fining them because they're in breach of existing legislation.…

Well... Though I agree with you in principle, the DMA does target specific gatekeeper companies and the criteria for these were set conveniently to ensure no EU company is regulated by it. So I can see their point a little

Isn't the question whether they were set because they were US companies, or because they are dominant gatekeepers on the Internet?

5/7 designated gatekeepers are US companies: https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers_en

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#344

Post by TheDong »

immibis wrote: post #236
thrance wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mentioned linux package managers, these existing are proof enough that a 30% cut isn't required for ensuring the safety of what you install. In fact, I'd wager there is that much more dangerous garbage in the app store than in pacman's database.

The Linux package repositories take a 30% cut of zero. If the software wasn't free, it would be entirely reasonable for them to demand a cut

I can install Jetbrains via most linux package managers, launch it, and pay money. I can install steam and pay for games. I can install sublime text and give em cash.

Arch linux doesn't try to take 30% of all the games I buy on steam, nor does it prevent steam from asking me for my credit card.

Apple reviews all apps to make sure they don't ask for your credit card, don't tell you where you can buy the same good online, and make sure that if you do sell anything, apple gets its 30% cut, even if it's a virtual store like steam. That's the reason you can't buy kindle books on iOS (even though you can buy apple books? Weird? Isn't that illegal anti-competitive behavior?)

It would absolutely not be reasonable for linux package managers to demand that I pay 30% more for all games on steam if I did "pacman -Sy steam" vs downloading steam from valve's website and figuring out how to get it working on arch-linux (taking the deb, extracting it with 'ar', and installing some dependencies)

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#345

Post by Derbasti »

mrtksn wrote: post #221
madeofpalk wrote: post #11

> Under the DMA, app developers distributing their apps via Apple's App Store should be able to inform customers, free of charge, of alternative offers outside the App Store, steer them to those offers and allow them to make purchases. To me, this is the most easily agreeable part of what the EU has been after. It is unfair that Apple restricts Netflix from telling it's users that they can sign up and pay for Netlifx…

>the most easily agreeable part of what the EU has been after It's also probably the most dangerous for Apple. It creates a cash incentive to push people outside of Apple's walled garden and show them what's outside. I really really hope Apple gets its act together, they are the greatest "the user experience comes first" company and they actually have great hard tech but they show signs of rent seeking behavior which…

> If not, they will have blunders and they will lose Europe since people are willing to look for alternatives as USA gets increasingly unpopular among the Europeans due to politics.

But what alternative? There is no European smartphone OS. Windows and Steam OS and XBox are US-american, too.

I suppose Linux, Playstation, and Nintendo, then?

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#347

Post by xvector »

nottorp wrote: post #76
xvector wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked at most FAANG companies, including Google, Apple, and Meta in the past (not currently). In my experience working at these companies and diving into the reported incidents/issues (e.g. Batterygate, Myanmar, Cambridge Analytica), I have found that comments like yours present an overly reductive worldview. You are likely entirely informed by ragebait news articles that grossly misrepresent the issues as oppo…

> would collapse millions of small businesses How? And do they have the right to exist if their only income is targeted ads?

How do you expect small businesses to acquire customers? Spending tens of millions of dollars competing in generalized ad space to reach the same audience they can reach today with $1000?

Most small businesses that exist today would become nonviable overnight, and that is a huge chunk of the economy. Sure, you can say "they shouldn't have the right to exist" because they use targeted ads, but I have yet to hear a solid argument for why such ads are an infringement on our fundamental rights such that the whole SMB segment of the economy is worth destroying.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#348

Post by staunton »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #325
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #238

US officials and businessmen keep on repeating the same thing: > The European Commission is attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards. But this is wildly untrue. The EU isn't hand-picking individual organisations and fining them because they're American, they're fining them because they're in breach of existing legislation.…

I think you make many good points. Slight tangent: Why isn't EU more concerned about TikTok? While it is very difficult to prove, various studies have demonstrated that TikTok pushes more content favoring the Chinese Government (CCP).

> TikTok pushes more content favoring the Chinese Government (CCP).

Does that violate EU law? (Serious question, I really don't know)

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#349

Post by mrtksn »

Derbasti wrote: post #345
mrtksn wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the most easily agreeable part of what the EU has been after It's also probably the most dangerous for Apple. It creates a cash incentive to push people outside of Apple's walled garden and show them what's outside. I really really hope Apple gets its act together, they are the greatest "the user experience comes first" company and they actually have great hard tech but they show signs of rent seeking behavior which…

> If not, they will have blunders and they will lose Europe since people are willing to look for alternatives as USA gets increasingly unpopular among the Europeans due to politics. But what alternative? There is no European smartphone OS. Windows and Steam OS and XBox are US-american, too. I suppose Linux, Playstation, and Nintendo, then?

The alternatives are Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo and others. Already the dominant brands in Europe. It doesn't have to be European, it has to be good and those are pretty good at much cheaper prices. They also offer premium models that Apple doesn't have a match.

People pay a lot extra for the feelings the brand invokes in them. Tesla was like that when it was about the values it used to represent, right after Musk dropped those values they had to start pricing their vehicles based on the specs to compete with similarly specced alternatives.

If Apple goes into fight with EU and becomes the "anti-european tech giant" they will have to start selling 300 euro iPhones.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#350

Post by xandrius »

Derbasti wrote: post #345
mrtksn wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the most easily agreeable part of what the EU has been after It's also probably the most dangerous for Apple. It creates a cash incentive to push people outside of Apple's walled garden and show them what's outside. I really really hope Apple gets its act together, they are the greatest "the user experience comes first" company and they actually have great hard tech but they show signs of rent seeking behavior which…

> If not, they will have blunders and they will lose Europe since people are willing to look for alternatives as USA gets increasingly unpopular among the Europeans due to politics. But what alternative? There is no European smartphone OS. Windows and Steam OS and XBox are US-american, too. I suppose Linux, Playstation, and Nintendo, then?

Wouldn't be sad about a Linux smartphone.
Post reply on HN