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

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

#141

Post by kmeisthax »

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.

This would be very consistent with their prior actions. Apple's "opening move" with prior rulings and laws on in-app payment processing has been to require separate binaries locked to specific jurisdictions. The company genuinely believes that competition is consumer-hostile at best and outright dangerous at worst.

The question is, how far will Apple go to keep Americans from turning on "EU mode"? Will it just be the usual country toggle? Will sideloaded apps be geofenced to the EU with Location Services? Or will they start adding bootloader fuses for each jurisdiction so that you can't install the "EU sideloading firmware" on US-purchased iPads? Or all of the above? I hope the EU is ready to litigate whatever hoops Apple makes people jump through - because Apple loves inventing new hoops.

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

#142

Post by simion314 »

s1k3s wrote: post #89

I can't make up my mind if this is good or bad. On one hand, FAANG has a huge advantage over anyone else on the market, but they did build that product and they did spend their own money to do it. I'd be curious if there are any other occurrences in history of something so big ending up regulated by the government?

Microsoft was forced to create open standards for documents, the docx format.

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

#145

Post by silvestrov »

ParksNet wrote: post #111
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.

Apple's greed (in maintaining the egregious 30% commission for so long) is going to undermine their entire ecosystem. If Apple moved voluntarily to 10% or 15% for all, there never would have been the industry pressure for this sort of regulation. The EU would have been better to just mandate a maximum % commission for all digital marketplaces above a certain level of revenue. This new solution will get poked full of…

> Apple simply chose to pay a $5.5 million fine every week for months in the Netherlands instead of obey orders from the Authority for Consumers and Markets

How to piss off the EU political system in one simple step.

This ruling is no surprise after such behaviour from Apple. They made their own bed.

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

#146

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

drcongo wrote: post #71
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Didn't it? Every Android user I know is a data leak firehose.

Same here for iOS users in the US.

Add some details and maybe we can compare better.

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

#147

Post by kinnth »

ParksNet wrote: post #111
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.

Apple's greed (in maintaining the egregious 30% commission for so long) is going to undermine their entire ecosystem. If Apple moved voluntarily to 10% or 15% for all, there never would have been the industry pressure for this sort of regulation. The EU would have been better to just mandate a maximum % commission for all digital marketplaces above a certain level of revenue. This new solution will get poked full of…

If iPhones had different app stores with 15% fees, then consumers would decide. I think the real issue here is consumers are gona get hyper confused and it wont be a better experience for anyone.

Every single app creator out there will now want their own "app store" and it's going to be a mess. 30% fee initially to capture that market was what our company factored in and grew exponentially with. A 15% fee is nothing if the market is fragmented.

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

#148

Post by obblekk »

I generally believe Apple, Google and others should be able to profit from creating some of the most useful, innovative and technically challenging products in human history (remember multi touch was not an affordable thing before Apple).

But, 15 years (since original iPhone) is about enough to reward the innovation. Beyond that point, it is the role of government to open up platforms to enable the next generation of competition and creation, otherwise things start to get stagnant.

That said, there aren’t a ton of things left that can’t be done without Apple approval (or rather, tons of things but not tons of value being blocked). Free speech seems like the big one and I do think it’s good for that to be officially supported (and require court orders to block rather than Apple/Google orders).

I would be a bit worried about the the ability of the EU to regulate privacy as swiftly and effectively as Apple. If I go to a clinic, they ask me to side load an app while I’m sick, and that app has no real privacy protections…

Probably on balance, this will be good for free society, and come with the natural knock on effect of more freedom to harm yourself as well.

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

#149

Post by mantas »

oneoff786 wrote: post #107
bushbaba wrote: post #87

Sounds like a security nightmare. The reason I like my iPhone is because it’s a walled garden. Things just work. This regulation hampers this

You don’t need to leave the walled garden

Wait till must-have apps go for 3rd party stores and exploit that to no end. E.g. banking, transit, parking etc.

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

#150

Post by Apocryphon »

ericmay wrote: post #135
Apocryphon wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook and others to start such stores that don't respect privacy rights This is trotted out every time, but these doomsaying scenarios always miss out that this is far harder to achieve than it seems, from a product and business perspective. They can build it, but consumers are unlikely to come. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30808926

If consumers are unlikely to come and major corporations aren't going to open their own app stores or migrate to third-party app stores, then what kind of companies are going to need to have a third-party app store that's uncontrolled by Apple? Do you think these companies have spent this much money on marketing and bankrolling lobbyists in the US and EU for no reason?

> major corporations aren't going to open their own app stores or migrate to third-party app stores

The major corporations will try, but consumers are just burnt out by managing all of the user accounts and dealing with different ecosystems. Not to mention even casual users are vaguely aware that these companies are out to take their data and sell them ads now.

I foresee that any attempt to put their apps exclusively on competing scammy low-privacy third party app stores will end in tears and mea culpas, leading them to put those apps back on the Apple App Store. As I've said before, creating a compelling alternative app ecosystem is hard, and if you think a Facebook App Store is going to be so scary, just look at the current state of the Amazon Appstore on Android, or the Samsung Galaxy Store. These are real world case studies, not hypothetical doomsday scenarios, and they do not show consumers flocking to these alternatives.

Finally, it's possible that antitrust logic can apply to these companies just as they apply to Apple. If Google tries to make Gmail, YouTube, G-Suite, etc. apps available only on a Google iOS Play Store, the courts aren't going to be happy about that.

> then what kind of companies are going to need to have a third-party app store that's uncontrolled by Apple?

Epic, mostly, with their games store. Piracy (for game emulators, ROMs, etc.), Porn and other adult content, and open-source Purists a la F-Droid. Also, potentially governments such as China or Russia.

> Do you think these companies have spent this much money on marketing and bankrolling lobbyists in the US and EU for no reason?

It's perfectly possible for companies to waste a lot of money on boondoggles that won't actually help their bottom line, yes.

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