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

#591

Post by itsoktocry » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 10:07 PM UTC

sircastor wrote: post #565

dingleberry420 wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, it won't be legal for Apple to void the warranty for this.

The concern is not a voided warranty. The concern is tech-illiterate users being able to install some random app they found on the web. They find a special version of Facebook and install it, and now their phone is compromised.

>They find a special version of Facebook and install it, and now their phone is compromised.

The Android ecosystem is a bit of a cesspool, but surely even it isn't having major issues with swaths of people having their phone compromised, right? My parents aren't going to sideload an apk.

I have faith that there's a way to do this right.

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

#592

Post by kbigdelysh » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 10:09 PM UTC

I hope this does not lead to corruption among EU policy makers. When regulators start adding regulations in a sector, big corps in that sector start spending more money for lobbing; hence more corruption among policy makers.

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

#593

Post by fleddr » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 10:11 PM UTC

Quite a few are commenting from their own perspective, as a consumer/user of an Apple device, and whether you're happy with it or not.

That's not really the point. The emphasis of this legislation first and foremost is on developers. Whom need/deserve a level playing field, instead of having the odds stacked up against them.

A return to more open computing should be celebrated, even if it remains to be seen what will happen.

And even if you're a die hard fan of closed computing, nothing bad will happen. You'll simply pick Safari, never sideload an app, and pay with Apple Pay. We can coexist.

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

#594

Post by justinclift » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 10:11 PM UTC

> Ensure that all apps are uninstallable and give users the ability to unsubscribe from core platform services under similar conditions to subscription.

Oh hell yeah. Hopefully this means the applications which Microsoft keep shovelling into Windows and disallowing removal of become a thing in the past.

eg "Video Editor" was an unfortunate discovery on a system here yesterday, introduced with some recent Win10 update. And which isn't allowed to be un-installed.

A "Video Editor" shovelware program. Treated as critical to the system. Fuckers. :(

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

#595

Post by criddell » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 10:12 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #489

criddell wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Has there ever been a console where, over the life of the console, the hardware was sold for a loss? > All of them. Are you serious? The Wii has sold more than 100 million units over the past ten years and you think it's been a net loss for Nintendo? PS5-to-PC comparisons are hard to do in a meaningful way. It's like saying a Toyota Camry is sold at a loss because if you build one part-by-part it's going to cost $…

Sony in particular does this. For the first X years of its life, Playstation is sold as a loss. They generate revenue through game sales and then a decade later as hardware components become cheaper and scale increases they start to make money on the consoles as well. If they can't generate revenue through game sales the entire console model would be upended and hardware prices would rapidly increase. No company can…

> No company can take the risk to lose billions without a guarantee of future revenue.

Apparently the Nintendo Switch was never sold at a loss.

Does it really matter though? They shouldn't be allowed to abuse consumers for the sake of their business model. If it were true that they were selling consoles for an expected loss, that would act as a barrier to new competitors entering the market.

Should companies like John Deere be able to prevent third-parties from doing maintenance on farm equipment because John Deere's business model relies on that revenue stream?

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

#596

Post by n8cpdx » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 10:13 PM UTC

ko27 wrote: post #458

n8cpdx wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don’t choose iPhone because they want those things, they choose iPhone because they want to be protected from them. Look at the Lumenate app that was just on hacker news yesterday: - Android users are complaining about having to create an account to use it - iOS users just pushed a button and didn’t even have to share their email or make a password - iOS users who subscribe have one place to manage their subsc…

> People don’t choose iPhone because they want those things Your argument is ridiculous. People didn't choose iPhone because they wanted to deprive themself of an option to switch browsers engines or payment vendors either. People actually chose iPhones for a thousand other reasons.

People choose iPhone because it works better and is reliable for longer. It works better and is reliable for longer because the APIs are better and more stable, the browser is relentlessly optimized for performance and energy consumption, and because Apple can limit bad behavior through App Store restrictions.

If Facebook tells people to install the meta store, and TikTok tells people to disable the setting and install the .exe, they will. Kids will turn off the setting so that they can get free swipes or whatever in their games.

If whatever app doesn’t want to worry about losing subscribers, they will just not allow you use Apple’s payment methods, and we’ll be back to the dark days of entering credit card information manually.

There are a thousand reasons, and Europeans are finding a thousand ways to make my computing experience worse. Look at cookie noticed for an example of exactly how well good-intentioned European regulation works in practice.

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

#597

Post by smoldesu » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 10:13 PM UTC

runako wrote: post #588

If app developers now will have access to the Secure Enclave, I sincerely hope Apple ships this as an EU-specific version of the hardware. I actually do like having hardware that can be (more) trusted, at least in some cases.

I think you have a grave misunderstanding of how hardware-based security coprocessors work... Maybe look into how Windows/Android handles similar models using TPM?

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

#598

Post by gamblor956 » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 10:14 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #590

gamblor956 wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's quite different. With the consoles, publishers are paying for the right to use the console maker's commercial IP (i.e., the Playstation or Xbox logo on their marketing materials) and technical IP (access to software APIs for using the hardware functionality). They do not pay royalties to the console makers for each sale. (Source: I work for a video game company and deal with these contracts...) Quite importa…

Is it as easy for a developer to release PS5 software as it is to release iOS software?

That's not relevant to this discussion, because the choice is (a) recreate everything yourself from scratch vs (b) pay monopolistic rates because there are no alternatives.

But on that note, a common refrain of iOS developers is what a PITA it is to make apps for iOS given the inferior quality of Apple devtools. Meanwhile, developers generally praise the ease of programming for the PS5.

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

#599

Post by simion314 » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 10:15 PM UTC

jahewson wrote: post #568

simion314 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not exactly - they were forced to publish the documentation for the binary formats, e.g. .doc publicly, without requiring royalties and with a covenant not to sue over use of any patents necessary for implementation. Previously the documentation was available to licensed 3rd parties only. OOXML is a subsequent creation.

Thanks for the correction. So MS could have decided to leave EU if they did not want to accept interoperability. So the Apple fans have a study case here where a giant was forced to open up and nothing bad happened to the users, even good stuff like I can tell people that some project of mine can import from Word if they use the docx format.

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

#600

Post by hoschicz » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 10:15 PM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #285

Does anything about this legislation prevent Apple from simply offering a big switch to put your device in “unprotected” mode, giving apps and even full alternative OS’s unrestricted access to the hardware, but without any Apple apps or services available ?

I think essentially yes, they can't bundle all their apps and services; you have to be able to install their apps and services separately in the unprotected mode. Not very sure though.