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European digital ID wallets rely on safety services of Google and Apple

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Re: European digital ID wallets rely on safety services of Google and Apple

#21

Regulations create monopolies. Even when regulations are aimed at curbing the control of giants, smaller players usually can't afford them and lose market share. This is actually taught as a competitive advantage strategy in business school. Corporations lobby the government to implement laws that seem to hurt them but in actuality create an uneven playing field where marketshare becomes available due to the higher i…

Aren't monopolies is what we end up by default if have no regulation at all? And yes, not every regulation destroys monopoly, but regulation is the only thing that could break one.

> Aren't monopolies is what we end up by default if have no regulation at all?

No.

Re: European digital ID wallets rely on safety services of Google and Apple

#22

Regulations create monopolies. Even when regulations are aimed at curbing the control of giants, smaller players usually can't afford them and lose market share. This is actually taught as a competitive advantage strategy in business school. Corporations lobby the government to implement laws that seem to hurt them but in actuality create an uneven playing field where marketshare becomes available due to the higher i…

Aren't monopolies is what we end up by default if have no regulation at all? And yes, not every regulation destroys monopoly, but regulation is the only thing that could break one.

> Aren't monopolies is what we end up by default if have no regulation at all?

No. Monopolies are only inevitable if the goods aren't elastic, if there is a large cost of entry into the market, or if its a market you can create a moat that is unsurmountable.

Many markets don't have that even with 0 regulation, but might have second order problems like firms creating unsafe products for example.

But in general regulations almost always even unindentedly raise the cost to enter the market. If you make a new regulation that food needs to be safe, then the company needs to pay a safety inspection that a small home-made recipe might not be able to afford (to give a simple example).

At the same time, we now have uber large corporations due to non elastic parts of supply chain (like land) or moats that are insurmountable (like access to US capital). In which case, the FCC should break up monopolies as the current market is not catering to end users and consumers but to owners, which is why the Stock market has been in a never ending bull run.

Re: European digital ID wallets rely on safety services of Google and Apple

#23
post #8
post #4

A European digital ID system that is entirely dependent on 2 US companies. Wasn't there some talk about the pressing need for European digital sovereignty recently? Or was that just performative nonsense?

The US can call Austria in 5 minutes and with no burden of proof get the airspace permit for a head of sovereign state revoked and the plane swatted instantly upon landing, because someone might have been on board (he wasn’t) whose only real crime was embarrassing the USA by exposing their fundamentally unconstitutional lawbreaking. Same goes with the prosecutors in Sweden; a phone call and the US got, not charges (a…

Unfortunately the big game is opaque it's close to impossible to understand for the common folk. So many questions, so tough to grasp answers. Sickening. The enemy is hiding. One could say that paying the taxes in some form is a path toward a destruction. Phrases like "war economy" are lunatic. It all starts in your mind, and that's why it's the most important to protect your children from the propaganda. Take care!

Re: European digital ID wallets rely on safety services of Google and Apple

#24

Regulations create monopolies. Even when regulations are aimed at curbing the control of giants, smaller players usually can't afford them and lose market share. This is actually taught as a competitive advantage strategy in business school. Corporations lobby the government to implement laws that seem to hurt them but in actuality create an uneven playing field where marketshare becomes available due to the higher i…

Aren't monopolies is what we end up by default if have no regulation at all? And yes, not every regulation destroys monopoly, but regulation is the only thing that could break one.

Are there any examples of monopolies being (successfully) broken up in Europe? Or do you posit that regulation stop them from forming?

Re: European digital ID wallets rely on safety services of Google and Apple

#25

Regulations create monopolies. Even when regulations are aimed at curbing the control of giants, smaller players usually can't afford them and lose market share. This is actually taught as a competitive advantage strategy in business school. Corporations lobby the government to implement laws that seem to hurt them but in actuality create an uneven playing field where marketshare becomes available due to the higher i…

Unless regulations explicitely incorporate how to handle incumbents & newcomers. One instance of that is MMTIS (multi modal passenger information), which explicitly states innovation and new players as a goal. There are other similar examples.

Re: European digital ID wallets rely on safety services of Google and Apple

#26
post #4

A European digital ID system that is entirely dependent on 2 US companies. Wasn't there some talk about the pressing need for European digital sovereignty recently? Or was that just performative nonsense?

Not really. EU is actually trying to decouple. But in many cases there are not any homegrown alternatives to support. There is not a single company in EU that could replace, even a considerable part, of software stack provided by Google and Apple. And, unless the regulatory environment changes., there probably never will be.

[dead]

Re: European digital ID wallets rely on safety services of Google and Apple

#28
post #16

Regulations create monopolies. Even when regulations are aimed at curbing the control of giants, smaller players usually can't afford them and lose market share. This is actually taught as a competitive advantage strategy in business school. Corporations lobby the government to implement laws that seem to hurt them but in actuality create an uneven playing field where marketshare becomes available due to the higher i…

Regulations __can__ create monopolies. DMA is a regulation, but it does not have the shortcomings you mentioned.

DMA seems explicitly written to only target monopolies, though (and seems like a surrender from the EU, since monopolies should be broken up and not get laws codifying their business models IMHO).

Re: European digital ID wallets rely on safety services of Google and Apple

#29
post #4

A European digital ID system that is entirely dependent on 2 US companies. Wasn't there some talk about the pressing need for European digital sovereignty recently? Or was that just performative nonsense?

Not really. EU is actually trying to decouple. But in many cases there are not any homegrown alternatives to support. There is not a single company in EU that could replace, even a considerable part, of software stack provided by Google and Apple. And, unless the regulatory environment changes., there probably never will be.

Jolla?

Re: European digital ID wallets rely on safety services of Google and Apple

#30
post #4

A European digital ID system that is entirely dependent on 2 US companies. Wasn't there some talk about the pressing need for European digital sovereignty recently? Or was that just performative nonsense?

Europe will never have digital sovereignty from the US. It will take 100 years and an extremely expensive, government-mandated reimplementation of every critical US tech service and company. No EU country is putting up budget for this, and no private enterprise is going to do it because building a worse version of AWS just so that it is "European" makes no financial sense and would most likely just fail anyway.

I agree with the premise but have the feeling that it’s less about the money. People here in Germany use WhatsApp and Instagram and Gmail and MS Office and Windows not because there are no alternatives but because they either don’t know or don’t care to switch. People are notoriously difficult to convince to switch platforms even if they‘d get more benefits on the other side. My mom does not want to touch any email client besides outlook and she does nothing but read and very occasionally reply to singular emails and she requires only the barest functionality of an email client. Half of my family gets a panic attack when the windows interface changes again. The idea of switching messengers recently in my rather tech sawy circle of friends has resulted in a multi day discussion with no real outcome mainly because some just don’t want to deal with two messengers while their friends and family remain unconvinced. We already have social media, hosting, email, operating systems, messengers and the likes from European providers. People just don’t want to switch.
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