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Apple vs the Law

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Re: Apple vs the Law

#161

Post by b112 »

Tainnor wrote: post #152
Y-bar wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then show me the handful of European, medium-sized companies competing for customers. Competing in category chemicals: BASF, Akzo Nobel, Lanxess, Air Liquide, and a bunch others Competing in category engineering: Siemens, Bosch, ABB, Alstom, ThyssenKrupp, Airbus and a bunch others Competing in category metals: Aurubis, Umicore, Norsk Hydro, Gruppo Riva, ThyssenKrupp, and a bunch others Competing in category pharma:…

These are all huge companies in my view. In addition to them there are also countless small to medium sized companies that nobody's ever heard of, that don't experience hypergrowth but have slow and steady growth - especially in the B2B sector. I've worked at some such companies.

All of this seems reasonable, and I see the value in keeping things competitive.

I do have one concern though.

Established markets are more entrenched, and hearing that smaller companies may have "slow and steady growth" here seems excellent.

Yet emerging markets move incredibly fast, and the goal is to discover those trenches and occupy them. Being held back in such a market can be troublesome.

So this is what I'd worry about.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#162

Post by madeofpalk »

saubeidl wrote: post #12
JoshTriplett wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Apple had faced reality and tried to understand the facts as they are When the EU attempts to legislate crypto backdoors, do you plan to say "If Signal had faced reality and tried to understand the facts as they are"?

That is a bad-faith argument and a false equivalency I will not engage in, lest I be warned by the mods for falling for obvious bait again.

Why is it a false equivalency, apart from "i agree with one law but not the other"?

Re: Apple vs the Law

#163

Post by giingyui »

simonask wrote: post #46

As a European, I have to say I am generally impressed with the EU in these cases. I'm from a country that's rich and capable, but with a GDP a fraction of Apple's market cap. There is no chance that national laws and entities would be sufficient to protect my consumer rights from corporations this size. The EU is fundamentally a centre-right, liberalist, pro-business coalition, but what that means is that it is pro-c…

Europe is centre right? That is an interesting claim. I guess someone’s right is someone else’s left.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#164

Post by pieds »

FinnLobsien wrote: post #106
Y-bar wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU has basically said that it's better to have a handful medium-sized companies in competition for customers than one or two mega-corps owning and dictating the market. And to resolve that they employ two things, one is the DMA/DSA and similar laws which mostly takes effect when your company reaches a certain large market penetration, the other is standardisations such as the Radio Equipment Directive (think "USB…

> The EU has basically said that it's better to have a handful medium-sized companies in competition for customers than one or two mega-corps owning and dictating the market. And to resolve that they employ two things, one is the DMA/DSA and similar laws which mostly takes effect when your company reaches a certain large market penetration, the other is standardisations such as the Radio Equipment Directive (think "U…

> The problem is that you pass DMA, DSA, GDPR, etc. which Google, Apple etc. can fight for years in court and if they have to pay a few billion, so be it.

And how do you compete with the big tech companies without it? It's been decades without anyone being able to do it. Not in Europe and not in the US. OpenAI might have a chance, but they also have billions.

The days where someone could drop out of school and start a company in the garage is over. Cost of living is up, so is competition. Companies need to expand and regulation like GDPR makes it easier to do so instead of having to deal with multiple countries regulation. The US always had an advantage in regulation like the DMCA.

To spell it out, before regulation European companies had to...

Deal with privacy regulation of each country. Which in the EU was supposed to be similar, but wasn't entirely. With GDPR not only is it the same in the EU, but other countries are now following the same model.

Register for VAT in every EU country it sold (enough) products in. Making many not sell to other countries at all until Amazon ate their business. With VAT MOSS you only register in you own country.

Accept many form of payments with many different fees since credit card adoption and cost could vary wildly. With interchange fees capped you increasingly only need to accept common credit cards.

Pay large roaming charges when traveling, making starting services like Uber or Airbnb less relevant since you couldn't assume someone had data in another country.

Try to compete with big tech companies that were charging for access to their platforms while minimizing their taxes through royalty payments, VAT deals and offshore holdings. Giving them a huge advantage. This is still the case, but lesser so.

For actually running a company it is a lot better now.

There are other problems with EU regulations. Some things are natural monopolies or in other ways doesn't do well as markets. Privatization and state-aid rules prevent European countries from effectively managing these areas. Any advantage Europe had over the US in cost of living and public services is rapidly diminishing.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#165

Post by mijoharas »

EMIRELADERO wrote: post #19

The greatest gem is found in the footnote, IMO > "They managed to convince the courts that iPadOS is a separate operating system to iOS (it's not), which delayed iPadOS being designated as a gatekeeper for almost a year. They are currently challenging all of the rest: the iOS, Safari, and App Store designations, and successfully managed to avoid iMessage being designated at all. They have taken the DMA law to court f…

Can someone explain what apple is arguing here?

_How_ do they claim that this section is inconsistent with the European Charter of Fundamental rights?

Re: Apple vs the Law

#166

Post by Y-bar »

Tainnor wrote: post #152
Y-bar wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then show me the handful of European, medium-sized companies competing for customers. Competing in category chemicals: BASF, Akzo Nobel, Lanxess, Air Liquide, and a bunch others Competing in category engineering: Siemens, Bosch, ABB, Alstom, ThyssenKrupp, Airbus and a bunch others Competing in category metals: Aurubis, Umicore, Norsk Hydro, Gruppo Riva, ThyssenKrupp, and a bunch others Competing in category pharma:…

These are all huge companies in my view. In addition to them there are also countless small to medium sized companies that nobody's ever heard of, that don't experience hypergrowth but have slow and steady growth - especially in the B2B sector. I've worked at some such companies.

I agree actually, my use of "medium-sized" was not best, in my personal view a medium-sized company is in the 200-500 employee range. These are definitively larger than that, however I assumed the person I replied to took "medium sized" to mean "significantly smaller than Apple/Google/Amazon/… …but not unknown". Because if I were to pull up a list of thirty unknown actually medium-sized companies pretty much nobody would recognise the names.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#168

Post by xandrius »

drexlspivey wrote: post #159
isodev wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> regulatory environment so complex only massive companies like big tech or Europe's legacy players have the resources to comply This is a very inaccurate view. I’ve worked with multiple SMEs and no such “complexities” ever become operational challenges. Even as a indie developer, my compliance is a default provided I’m not trying to do something shady. Looking into the EU regulations, in most cases what they want yo…

This indie dev begs to differ https://x.com/levelsio/status/1833126426142179653

That indie dev got contacted by the government for feedback. Not a bad sign, in my opinion.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#169

Post by pyman »

ekunazanu wrote: post #94
pyman wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what your expectations are when it comes to billionaires. Tim's definitely not Linus Torvalds, that's for sure. But he's one of the few actually pushing back.

I wonder what you think of Gabe Newell then

I was expecting more from him, given his wealth and power.

Re: Apple vs the Law

#170

Post by dimitri-vs »

cm2012 wrote: post #116
FinnLobsien wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU has basically said that it's better to have a handful medium-sized companies in competition for customers than one or two mega-corps owning and dictating the market. And to resolve that they employ two things, one is the DMA/DSA and similar laws which mostly takes effect when your company reaches a certain large market penetration, the other is standardisations such as the Radio Equipment Directive (think "U…

Yes. As someone who has worked with 100+ funded start-ups, roughly 85 in USA and 15 in EU - the EU ones have such a harder, trudging climb due to regulations.

Given the tidal wave of vibecoded startups were about to see - the US may want to take a look at what the EU is doing.
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