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How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

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Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#61
post #29

One of the biggest problems that I have in the EU is that it's almost federated. EU will pass laws, countries will adopt those laws, but you end up with 20-24 different versions of those laws. With some countries being strict or lenient about the law that everyone agreed to. And a lot it is written from the perspective that large corporations are the only ones who do business throughout the EU. It's completely missed…

Living in Europe, I find that with LLMs, it is possible to navigate the federal & law jungle. However, LLMs don't protect you from institutional envy or the resistance of people trying to block progress simply because it is perceived as 'too modern' or disruptive. I find this the hardest challenge. And I have the feeling during times of general decline, like these, it gets worse.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#62
post #7

It is possible to ignore laws if it's too much bother to comply with them... it's hard to imagine the authorities will come after someone for mailing out 10 anti-static bags.

Sounds like a great opportunity for folks to sue you for exactly that. Same with the imprint requirement in Germany. There are people out there looking for small businesses without an imprint to extract some money from them.

As they should. As a customer, I want to be able to hold a business accountable, and the minimum requirement for that is being able to identify the legal person responsible for that business.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#63

This echos the FCC rules in the US, which I believe are gotten around by not complying. Even if you are not making an intentional radiator, and/or are using datasheet-specified layouts or modules, you still must comply, which makes these businesses non-viable if complying. I believe Adafruit gets around certifying every device by declaring themselves a cellphone company and being on good terms with regulators. This i…

FCC allows suppliers to self-declare conformance with EMI/EMC rules. You’re obviously taking a risk selling stuff if you haven’t had it properly tested so don’t really know if it passes but it’s unlikely to really be an issue for a small maker selling low quantities, especially if any intentional radiators (Bluetooth, WiFi etc.) are already-certified modules.

Your device tends to need to be causing problems, that the FCC then go and track down, and then come back to you. That is (hopefully, depending on the kind of device) extremely unlikely.

As for Ali stuff, probably lots of it is not tested but still comes with a FCC label - but if it is shipped from overseas, who is going to take responsibility for it? Nobody… So there is nothing they can do except fine the person who bought it if it’s really causing problems (and usually I doubt they’d even do that if the user wasn’t intentionally doing something they shouldn’t have been, they are just told to stop and maybe the device would be seized/ destroyed)

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#64
post #41

Laws like this really need to only be enforced for companies of certain sizes.

Selective enforcement is a tyranny generator. How about the law doesn’t exist if it doesn’t actually make sense?

Selective enforcement is just tyranny, but what I think they were getting at is a minimum size enshrined in law. I don't think it's a great idea, really highlights how arbitrary this all is and presents a risk of advantaging the worst actors more than real makers, but it's a valid way forward.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#65
Is there room for a company in the EU to spend some time doing the research as to what packaging is able to be used across all the different countries, then selling affordable packaging that meets those standards across the board? And also publish resources for how to effectively package stuff? A genuine question, I’m not from Europe. It just seems like something that would benefit everyone and help make this less of an issue. Or maybe this is the responsibility of the postal systems themselves? If you’re gonna mandate a certain way of doing things, at least give people the tools to do it the way you want them to.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#66
post #7

It is possible to ignore laws if it's too much bother to comply with them... it's hard to imagine the authorities will come after someone for mailing out 10 anti-static bags.

Maybe it's super convenient for you in the moment, but the aggregate effect is pretty bad. If everyone just ignores laws because they're too much hassle and they don't expect to get caught, enforcement becomes incredibly difficult. You end up with loads of laws that technically exist but are only selectively enforced, which is a pretty serious problem.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the law was devised by Ripa di Meana, who had been a member of the Italian Communist Party and the green party. how ironical

It’s hard to overthrow actual free markets. Small business is too sympathetic. But if you pass enough well-meaning regulations and strangle all the small businesses with good intentions, it’s much easier to overthrow a crony-capitalist oligopoly of megacorps, which is exactly the end game.

yes, and go back to communism 2.0. because that worked so well the last time it was tried.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#68
This is a great read and I can extend this argument really to any small business. Tax filing, VAT, bookkeeping, privacy, consumer, workplace and sectoral requirements frequently impose a disproportionately large cost on microbusinesses. EU is more and more split along the enterprise and VC backed line, and everyone in between has disproportionate costs. My barber in Stockholm often complains about this - the amount of money they would need to earn to overcome all these costs is staggering. So they often do lots of gigs on the side.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#69
as the whole world crushes small entities one has to wonder whether the EU would be the saviour or not. Apparently not. With its rules, they merely help crush small business as per usual.

I heard in the 50s an american could just startup a business installing septic tanks. But now the same person would need a myriad of regulations to be met, heavy equipment use mandated, all of which raise overhead to a level where its impossible to get off the ground.

I always felt the EU were the "good guys", IE not allowing corps to steam roll everyone, what with their rules fining poor behvaiour such as privacy violations, chargers being non standard etc.

However the same problem exists in weird ways you wouldnt even imagine.

For example if someone walks into a small "mom and pops" coffee shop and accuse the owner of "ejecting them due to harrasment reasons", that results in a court case, which can bankrupt the whole margin thin enterprise.

You might say, wait how on earth would a random troublemaker get funding to take a cafe to court, and for what benefit? For one its easier for a settlement to be reached regardless of fault that benefits the claimant than a long court process.

Now how could claimants have the resources? Unbelievably it turns out there are free national non profit corporations that will take any claim for free to court for situation mentioned above.

So what happens in the end? The small coffee shops cant survive but the larger corps who can afford the random payouts are fine, the competition seems to go away on its own and the claimants are happy with what amounts to random payouts for little work.

Please look it up it, and correct me if im wrong, I only know this from some little research into the forays of why small coffee shops find it hard to survive in western landscapes and risks, as I wanted to open my own coffee shop!

In summary, as always the road to ruin is paved with good intentions. So the EU trying to help a little guy in a specific context, ends up creating a situation that makes all small coffee shops non profitable.

I have no solutions.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#70

FTR. The whole PPWR process started back in 2015, there was a public consultation period in 2020-21, the new rules were entered into force in February 2025 and now the general application happened. So there was plenty of time to prepare, as far as I can see. People that run a business in the EU and now claim to be surprised, they, well, surprise me.

It also surprises and bewilders me that businesses (usually tech or tech adjacent) apparently expect and have for some time expected the ability to do business internationally completely without friction. Which is less something I think is a good or bad idea, and far more just simply an unrealistic one. If you want to sell in a given set of countries, I would think it a given that you would have to deal with the regulations and business laws in each of those given countries. The fact that you want to sell hacker/DIY products to people in less developed markets is admirable, certainly, but it doesn't change that. It's an unsolved problem precisely because it's kind of a pain in the ass to do compliance work across a large number of them. It's why large companies have entire departments devoted to regulatory compliance.

As far as I'm concerned the only way you could say this is "killing" any business is if the business in question has, as you said, spent the last decade just assuming they could sell things wherever with no oversight.

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