Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management • Hacker News Board

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#291

Post by doktrin » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 2:36 PM UTC

bengale wrote: post #83

troupo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing in the law requires those cookie banners. If you don't agree, you can quote to me the exact passage in the GDPR where it talks about cookies, banners, or browsers. Or you can read what Github has to say about this: https://github.blog/2020-12-17-no-cookie-for-you/

This is the exact problem though, noone really cares what the law says, they care that now they have annoying cookie banners. They don't blame the businesses for this; they blame the EU. The more of this they layer on the more ordinary people get irritated by the EU. This is how Brexit happened, remain tried to explain this stuff over and over again and no one wants to hear it. They want the cookie banners gone, or t…

> There actually isn't a point where you can spend enough money to convince people of this stuff when they don't want to hear it.

A bit chicken and the egg, this. Persistent and well funded influence campaigns are precisely how people came to hold the views you describe. I personally wouldn't treat "leave" logic as some kind of particularly organic position. Rather its success demonstrates how one form of persuasion was more effective than another.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#292

Post by rkangel » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 2:38 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #51

I quite like the article as far as it goes; but this begs the follow up question - is the strategy working? Because for all their standards and harmonisation, the manufacturing is happening in China and the decisions are being made in North America. This should be an article about how Nokia or equivalent is approaching the US all wrong and not understanding the realities on the ground. I'd put energy in a similar fra…

It's working for the people that live in the EU.

This is another point that I think Americans miss sometimes - "good for the businesses" is seen as the end goal, and it is assumed that people will benefit in some trickle-down way from that.

The goal for all of this is for people to have good lives. Supporting businesses may or may not be the right way of doing that, but we shouldn't lose sight of the end goal.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#293

Post by ben_w » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 2:38 PM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #237

carlosjobim wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use government websites within EU countries, most of them have cookie warnings. And a large part of them also use dark patterns to "forget" that you selected "only necessary" cookies each time you visit.

So what is your conclusion? "It's a bad law"? Government websites breaking GDPR is an important thing to know, in order to fight against it.

Much as I like the law, I'm sure I saw a headline when it first went live along the lines of "EU's own website about this law violates it", which suggests[0] that perhaps it could have been done better.

That said, I just looked at it, and this is my idea of a well-made popup: https://gdpr.eu/what-is-gdpr/

[0] But for the Betteridge law of headlines and Gell-Mann amnesia

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#294

Post by hnben » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 2:39 PM UTC

immibis wrote: post #265

mjburgess wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem they've mistaken the general sentiment towards government regulation in europe, which is typically, "more, better". Since we have so many consumer protections, much of how we end up engaging with the law around business practices is to our benefit . We're always aware we can raise bad business practices with an ombudsman (etc.). So our lived experience of government regulation is, in large part, positive…

Nowhere is the general sentiment towards government regulation "more, better". The correct sentiment is both "more good ones, better" and "less bad ones, better"

"more, better" assumes that most regulations are perceived as good

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#295

Post by shrimp_emoji » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 2:40 PM UTC

drooopy wrote: post #26

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #10

What amazes and perplexes me is that Apple thinks it can effectively play politics against the EU and that somehow their customers will back them in the face of the "consequences" Apple applies, which are pretty transparent and really quite amateurish (eg no more web apps for you!). As the article states, the first mistake Apple makes is thinking the EU is somehow like the US, but I can't see how any large proportion…

Despite the rise of far right populist parties, Europe tends to lean more on the left side of the political spectrum compared to America, and corporate worship is a relatively new thing over here. People tend to have more faith in governments and treat companies with more distrust, compared to the US which seems to be the other way around.

I don't think Americans worship corporations. They mistrust them too.

But your threat model is messed up if you're more scared of Microsoft or your ISP abusing you than your government abusing you. The latter has way more potential for harm, and it's exacting that harm with your tax dollars to boot.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#296

Post by shrimp_emoji » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 2:41 PM UTC

brummm wrote: post #233

drooopy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite the rise of far right populist parties, Europe tends to lean more on the left side of the political spectrum compared to America, and corporate worship is a relatively new thing over here. People tend to have more faith in governments and treat companies with more distrust, compared to the US which seems to be the other way around.

While you are right, I think the better formulation is that the US is just super to the right of the normal political spectrum. In Europe you have a pretty good spread across the whole spectrum across the many countries, but in the US the left really doesn't exist as a party. Even the Democrats would be a conservative party in most other countries.

> Democrats would be a conservative party in most other countries.

Ah, that tried and true indicator of "I get all my takes from Reddit".

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#297

Post by MarcusE1W » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 2:41 PM UTC

pbmonster wrote: post #131

imp0cat wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Including USB-C? I find that hard to believe.

And roaming charges? Who doesn't like paying every time they go abroad for something that is now entirely free.

You could not even get near a border without a foreign telecom provider trying to connect you to their network abroad with powerful senders and charge through the roof.

Those where the days ;-)

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#298

Post by denton-scratch » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 2:42 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #272

kitsune_ wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insane is a bit of a strong word, no? If Musk was a visionary he would have built trains, not cars.

Cars was a better choice than trains on both environmental grounds and business grounds. First, environment. • Trains are somewhere from 1/2 to 1/4 the CO2 emissions per passenger over a given distance than are cars. • For freight are nearly an order of magnitude less per ton over a given distance than trucks. Second, business. • Nobody buys sports trains. Trains are expensive to build and expensive to buy. Almost no…

> Sports cars are playthings, not work things.

And accordingly, they shouldn't be allowed on the public highway; they should be restricted to private racetracks. There's no reason to allow cars that can cruise at 3x the speed limit to be driven among ordinary civilians.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#299

Post by xdennis » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 2:43 PM UTC

bojan wrote: post #253

Aerroon wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Bulgarian truckers started outcompeting French truckers the EU came up with new rules to shut that down. Requiring that the truck has to go back to the country the company is from every 2 months is ridiculous. Not the driver, the vehicle.

Why would it be ridiculous, if a truck has a Bulgarian license plate it's a reasonable expectation that it's based in Bulgaria.

In a "free" market why would a Bulgarian be forced to operate only near Bulgaria?

As an example, all food in Romania is from the Netherlands or other foreign countries. But you don't see the EU imposing regulations to make foreign food more expensive.

Essentially eastern Europe is an exploitation market: everything is manufactured in the west, and when the east has an advantage it's immediately shut down.

This is also very polluting: forcing eastern European drivers to migrate to their home countries frequently, transporting food from western Europe to eastern Europe.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#300

Post by tristor » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 2:43 PM UTC

ta1243 wrote: post #97

frizlab wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am European and hate all the regulations they’ve done so far. I know it’s a very rare pov, but for me all of these new legislations are terrible both for the consumers AND the small developers (which I am both). The ONLY people getting something are the somewhat big companies.

You hate (not dislike, actively hate ) 861/2007, the European Small Claims procedure? and 1007/2011, you are really that opinionated on textile fibre names?

I realize you are using these examples as something so innocuous and inoffensive nobody would oppose such regulation. However, you clearly have not read either regulation in full and with due consideration of its effects. You can form your own judgments, but these regulations are not without tradeoffs.

Take 1007/2011, on one hand this just centralizes and codifies some existing regulations to reduce country-specific administrative burdens, on the other hand in Chapter 2, Articles 5 and 6, it places onerous regulatory burdens on anyone wanting to create new textile blends.

You can no longer simply produce such a product and make it honestly available to the market, it’s illegal to sell without first getting the EU to agree to add your textile blend to Annex I, which requires an extensive bureaucratic process with destructive testing requirements.

On one hand, it’s important to know exactly what is in a product, on other hand being so distrustful that you mandate expensive destructive testing before the first offer to market means either you expect people to regularly violate these laws at the margins or you intend to completely stamp out small time inventors. Contrary to what the average person thinks there is a lot of active development in the textile industry trying to find new fiber sources and production methods which lower costs and lower environmental impacts. This is especially true in the production of rayon, with things like the lyocell process, using new cellulose sources like bamboo and eucalyptus, and identifying alternative chemical pathways for the production of viscose.

Regulations like these are a two edged sword, like all regulations. Comparing the US to the EU, the EU generally has higher product quality standards but lags the US in innovation, part of the reason why is due to these types of regulations. It is much easier for a small-time inventor to go from idea to product in market in the US than the EU, including in the textile space.