Part of me would love to see Apple pull out of Europe, and bully them to roll this back. Would be fun to watch!
I’d say 50-50, they’d win!
EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved
521–530 of 1001 posts
Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved
#522Why is the EU able to pass pro-consumer laws, but America unable to? Are big tech companies just unable to properly bribe the European Union like they do the American Government?
EU-based *aaS companies are practically nonexistent relative to US-based ones, so there's basically nothing holding them back from passing bills like this one gerrymandered to (i) companies with a global market cap above €75B, (ii) with 45 million European users, (iii) and an included web browser or messaging app. If they had companies satisfying those criteria, they'd certainly see more pushback. I personally like t…
Would it not be possible to spin off “iPhone Europe PLC” which is worth less than the threshold?
If it were truly independent then Apple’s “global market cap” would be irrelevant, and Cupertino could collect via IP licensing in Luxembourg taxed at 5%.
[edited for clarity, I think]
Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved
#523This is easily one of the most expansive Acts regarding computing devices passed in my lifetime. The summary is in the link. As an iPhone user, this will enable me to: * Install any software * Install any App Store and choose to make it default * Use third party payment providers and choose to make them default * Use any voice assistant and choose to make it default * User any browser and browser engine and choose to…
While I am in the camp of apple allowing side-loading, i am not a fan of monopolistic regulations like this. It opens all kind of questions, like 1. What devices have to comply? 2. Who decides what device has to comply? Should playstation open their system too. What about a niche bank transaction signing device that internally uses an android capable hardware. Is this illegal now? 3. What about a car infotainment sys…
Monopolistic regulation? This is clearly aimed against existing monopolies, i.e. gatekeepers. Can you explain how ensuring that
1. Making unsubscribing is as easy as subscribing, and 2. Guaranteed interoperability between instant messaging services, and 3. Sharing marketing and/or advertisement performance with business users
will "kill competition"?
Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved
#524Part of me would love to see Apple pull out of Europe, and bully them to roll this back. Would be fun to watch! I’d say 50-50, they’d win!
You can replace Apple products with similars. Apple cannot replace money with lack of money.
Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved
#525It blows my mind how many people have bought into Apple's position on this. No, Apple restricting your freedom does not afford you greater security. You, as an adult, can choose not to install shady software. If you're not confident in your ability to tell shady from legit, just stick to the App Store. Don't demand that Apple treat the rest of us like children just because that's how you would like to be treated.
The apparent desire for paternalism unnerves me. Any time people are free to choose who they associate with, they run the risk of coming across bad actors who would scam them or worse. In most domains of life, we have special protections for the senile elderly and children but everybody else is given freedom and subsequently expected to develop and exercise a sense of good judgement, because freedom is more important…
> But in the specific case of iphones, the argument is made that giving rational level-headed adults the freedom to associate with the software they wish would imperil children and the elderly
By whom? You are the first person I heard this from.
Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved
#526This looks like bad news for Apple, much more so then for Google. It doesn't really address Google's ad-driven ecosystem, but goes hard after the app store and hardware differences where apple has prioritized privacy rather then ad-spend. I don't see a alternative to apple the to emulate Google and ditch privacy in favor of ad-tech after looking at the text.
These rules specifically seem targeted at Meta's/Google's ad business.
- (Gatekeepers have to) give business users access to their marketing or advertising performance data on the platform - (Gatekeepers can no longer) reuse private data collected during a service for the purposes of another service
Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved
#527Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with all of this shit is that the EU is only measuring sentiment from developers, not end users. End users are happy with Safari. Developers are the only ones who care about any of the rest of this.
If the users prefer Safari they can keep using it, no?
Chrome is becoming the new Internet Explorer. They are adding features the marketers want regardless if it is good for privacy or other ecosystems. We are already seeing websites and services that only work correctly in Chrome. Safari is the only viable competition.
Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved
#528One would think that if there is truly a Europe wide market for such an unlocked device a competitor should be able to challenge Apple and Google dominance. Europe could even subsidize it. But instead, it’s more engineering by bureaucrats. Why is Europe so afraid of competing in the open market?
Quoted post unavailable.
The Open App Markets Act and the American Innovation and Choice Online Act are currently making their way through the House.
Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved
#529Subject: business models to become huge monopolies.
Apple makes $$$ from selling products people mostly love.
Google, Facebook/Meta make most of their cash from surveillance capitalism, I mean, advertising. Microsoft (tracking keystrokes in Windows) and Amazon (“we are a ‘data’ company”) also aren’t really privacy focused (though they do get chunks of income from actual products)
So I’m a bit torn with this legislation.
Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved
#530Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of these rules apply only to companies above a certain size, both in number of users and revenue. Those get classified as "digital gatekeepers" and they are the companies that have to comply with extra requirements. So no, this will not affect startups and harm innovation, it will just force the monopolistic behemoths to play nice and cease actively harming innovation.
It also starts to bother me quite a bit when we go from treating everyone equal before the law to creating certain requirements based on other factors. Further it seems more like a moat to keep anyone else from getting as big as these "digital gatekeepers" are as suddenly when you get to a certain size you have an enormous expense. If these companies really are that large that they have to get special laws for them i…
> Further it seems more like a moat to keep anyone else from getting as big as these "digital gatekeepers" are as suddenly when you get to a certain size you have an enormous expense.
Yes, and that's a good thing. It suppresses monopolistic tendencies before they can take hold, rather than trying to prove they are a monopoly and trying to figure out after the fact how to break them in a sensible way.
> If these companies really are that large that they have to get special laws for them isnt the solution to dissolve their monopoly and split the company up instead of starting to create separate classes of laws.
Why? All you're doing is letting that monopoly create the great device/service/whatever that lots of people seem to be enjoying, but levelling the playing field so they are still forced to compete for users instead of exploiting their monopoly power to kill any competition.
Encouraging competition is the ultimate goal because that's where the progress from capitalism comes from. If we can continue to encourage competition without going about the messy business of directly interfering with how a company is structured or how it operates, that seems like a win.