EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms • Hacker News Board

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#11

Post by guerrilla » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

988747 wrote: post #8

superb-owl wrote: post #5

This is huge. Forcing Apple to allow app side-loading, third-party payments, etc is going to wrest away control of the iOS ecosystem (and eat pretty heavily into their revenues [1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/10/apple-implies-it-generated-r... I hope some of these regulations spill over into the U.S. and the rest of the world.

I wonder if it would make more financial sense for Apple to withdraw from EU market, rather than complying. The numbers for 2021 are pretty much in line: $89B - Apple sales in Europe (including some non-EU countries, most notably UK) $85B - Apple AppStore revenue worldwide. The question is: which one has more potential for growth.

That would be a strategic mistake even if it made short-term sense (which it probably doesn't) because it would leave a big hole for to fill that could be leveraged to compete with them later in the US.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#12

Post by ericmay » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

PedroCandeias wrote: post #4

I'm personally happy to stay inside Apple's ecosystem, but believe that everyone should have the option to choose. This looks like good news, a step in the direction of being more in control of the devices we buy.

You do have the option to choose. You can buy any number of Android phones, or you can jailbreak an iPhone with custom software.

Ultimately this will be bad for regular people, and good for crypto scammers, ad agencies, and companies that rely on hovering up personal data.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#13

Post by amelius » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

It will be interesting to see what dark patterns Apple will come up with to resist this. I imagine every time you open Firefox you will get a popup window saying "Do you want to use Safari instead?"

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#14

Post by TrickyRick » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

988747 wrote: post #8

superb-owl wrote: post #5

This is huge. Forcing Apple to allow app side-loading, third-party payments, etc is going to wrest away control of the iOS ecosystem (and eat pretty heavily into their revenues [1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/10/apple-implies-it-generated-r... I hope some of these regulations spill over into the U.S. and the rest of the world.

I wonder if it would make more financial sense for Apple to withdraw from EU market, rather than complying. The numbers for 2021 are pretty much in line: $89B - Apple sales in Europe (including some non-EU countries, most notably UK) $85B - Apple AppStore revenue worldwide. The question is: which one has more potential for growth.

Some of that App Store revenue comes from the EU BTW. Probably a quite sizable chunk of it.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#15

Post by kmlx » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

tchocky wrote: post #9

988747 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it would make more financial sense for Apple to withdraw from EU market, rather than complying. The numbers for 2021 are pretty much in line: $89B - Apple sales in Europe (including some non-EU countries, most notably UK) $85B - Apple AppStore revenue worldwide. The question is: which one has more potential for growth.

I don't think so. The EU market is pretty huge and financially strong. Maybe they will only allow sideloading and payment freedom for the EU with special iOS builds.

depends on the company really. some might think a bit more about offering their products to eu countries considering (some of) these rules. which imo are quite serious, and some even ridiculous.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#16

Post by anonymousab » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

guerrilla wrote: post #10

Oh wow, that's quite a list. I wonder if any of it will end up having retroactive effects because > Ensure that all apps are uninstallable. I REALLY want to remove some of this junk Samsung forced on my phone (while omitting screen record on this model.)

I suspect the compliance will be as minimal as possible, e.g. uninstalling included junk will only flip some settings bit that hides some of the user facing activity. Just enough to make a glib "look, we obeyed the law" statement as they will assume nobody will actually take them to court over it.

Perhaps I am too pessimistic.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#17

Post by WastingMyTime89 » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 2:36 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #12

PedroCandeias wrote: post #4

I'm personally happy to stay inside Apple's ecosystem, but believe that everyone should have the option to choose. This looks like good news, a step in the direction of being more in control of the devices we buy.

You do have the option to choose. You can buy any number of Android phones, or you can jailbreak an iPhone with custom software. Ultimately this will be bad for regular people, and good for crypto scammers, ad agencies, and companies that rely on hovering up personal data.

Apple advances this argument all the time. Meanwhile most European use Android which allows side-loading and the predicted apocalypse didn’t actually happen. I know it’s annoying: this pesky reality showing to everyone that your argument is actually specious.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#18

Post by dijit » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 2:36 PM UTC

I'm personally very happy with Safari slowing down the over-arching progress of "Web browsers are an application distribution platform", but I definitely see the value in this.

I am very excited about the prospect of having federation between communication platforms... imagine sending messages from iMessage to whatsapp?! great, just like in the mid-00's!

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#19

Post by hef19898 » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 2:36 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #13

It will be interesting to see what dark patterns Apple will come up with to resist this. I imagine every time you open Firefox you will get a popup window saying "Do you want to use Safari instead?"

Followed by "Thanks for making Safari your default browser" after you clicked on "Make Firefox my default".

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#20

Post by tchocky » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #12

PedroCandeias wrote: post #4

I'm personally happy to stay inside Apple's ecosystem, but believe that everyone should have the option to choose. This looks like good news, a step in the direction of being more in control of the devices we buy.

You do have the option to choose. You can buy any number of Android phones, or you can jailbreak an iPhone with custom software. Ultimately this will be bad for regular people, and good for crypto scammers, ad agencies, and companies that rely on hovering up personal data.

Don't know if it will be bad. Apple still can make this securely. It doesn't mean that the system needs to be completely open, just that apps need to be able to access hardware features. NFC for example can be asked upon like GPS on the OS level. Doesn't mean that the apps need to access NFC on the direct hardware level. And I don't want to have Android, but I would like for Apple to open up things like the forced browser engine stuff. With this Apple is blocking so much innovation for the web because they are not implementing so many things.