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Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

ca.finance.yahoo.com

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Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#611

Post by _mlbt »

guappa wrote: post #562
_mlbt wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can’t people just buy Android phones that allow for this? They should change, not Apple and their users that like the walled garden.

I mean, you realise nobody is going to point a gun at your head and force you to sideload apps right?

Yeah but these companies will force me to install their garbage third party app stores to install their apps. I really just want one good, properly vetted app store on my phone, is that so hard to understand?

If you ever tried out third party app stores on Android you’ll see what I mean. See also the crappy launchers/stores major game publishers try to force on you on PCs.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#612

Post by xvector »

immibis wrote: post #491
xvector wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a totally foreign idea to the EU. Offensive and crass, even. There's something I've learnt from some time in the EU. There is not an innovative, risk-taking, freedom-loving bone in the EU culture -- they exported all those folks to the US. Their homegrown risk takers and innovators inevitably leave because of their suffocating culture around innovation, entrepreneurship, and progress. This is one of the reaso…

or maybe they just don't think automated mass surveillance is a worthwhile innovation. Like the atom bomb, you know - you shouldn't get to drop one in the middle of the city just because you invented it. Not even if it's very profitable.

The atom bomb ushered an unprecedented era of peace between nuclear armed countries.

The number of men dying or getting wounded in war as a percentage of population has gone down dramatically post-nuclear.

Conventional meat-grinder warfare is all but over in nuclear countries, and we can probably thank it for not being sent to war ourselves.

We also got atomic energy out of it which is cool.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#613

Post by reissbaker »

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #540
reissbaker wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American brands should tread carefully: while America is willing to ban their (cheaper, sometimes better) competitors, Europe is much less willing to — especially now as America itself has taken a much more bullying tone towards its allies.

America overestimates its economic strength on the world stage because they have an unmatched military, but when all books are closed its only 300M people and most of em are broke. That's a market the same size as Brazil, Australia and the UK combined - it's a lot but it's not enough to start unilaterally declaring yourself the boss. USA is playing a losing strategy here.

Most are not broke. The median household income is $79k; compare, say, to the UK where the median household income is $46k.

However, it's true that 300M isn't enough to call yourself boss...

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#614

Post by geon »

tpmoney wrote: post #532
pmontra wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately all the money Apple is making from the store comes from the pockets of people. If apps won't have to pay a cut to Apple, people would be left with more money in their pockets. If all apps were free and no sales would be forced to go through those apps, Apple still sells the phones and makes money from them. Would it be left with less money? Not my problem. Would it increase the cost of phones (maybe only i…

> Would it increase the cost of phones (maybe only in the EU) to compensate the missing revenues? Probably not "fair" since the EU seems opposed to their "core technology fee", which is (supposedly) a fee to the developers to compensate for the missing revenues. And if the EU allowed raising prices in EU counties to offset that lost revenue, but didn't allow the core tech fee, that would effectively be the EU outlawi…

> EU would just demand continued subsidized access

No. Apple is free to charge the same "core technology fee" to developers who choose to release apps on the Apple Appstore. The only issue the EU has is how Apple uses the fee to give themselves an advantage.

The EU creates laws to prevent predatory behaviour from corporations. It isn't the EU's job to come up with an alternative business model that still makes Apple the same amount of money.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#615

Post by dns_snek »

robertlagrant wrote: post #572
dns_snek wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, just one person's consumer choice to curb anti-competitive behavior which is artificially raising prices for everyone and restricting innovation. Among other fringe choices like having electrical appliances that don't kill us, paint that doesn't cause brain damage, cars that don't poison our air, and rivers that aren't full of toxic chemicals.

Mobile phones have had one of the most rapid price plummets and feature additions in history. The only thing stopping another competitor is the fact that it's so hard to compete with them, because they're incredible value for money and there isn't a market being gouged that can be un-gouged.

You're still looking at this from a perspective that's completely irrelevant to this entire legislation. In very simple terms if my business needs to reach people who happen to use iOS and Android devices, and the only way to do that properly is using a native app, then I need to go through Apple and Google because that's where all of my potential customers are.

That puts Apple and Google into a gatekeeping position and allows them to dictate unfair terms because together they control access to what, 99% or more of the consumer market? These unfair terms trickle down to all of us and we end up paying more and have less choice than we would in a transparent, regulated market.

That's what the DMA is concerned with, not some fantasy about feasibility of creating a competitor to Android or iOS, or ease of switching between them which is completely besides the point.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#616

Post by dns_snek »

maccard wrote: post #571
dns_snek wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single thread on this topic devolves into "if you don't like Apple just use Android" or vice versa and it's so predictable and boring. Again, like I pointed out in my previous comment, it's not just about you or me as consumers and our immediate preferences. Apple's and Google's anti-competitive behavior is stifling innovation with their policies and fees. First and foremost this affects developers/businesses w…

> Every single thread on this topic devolves into "if you don't like Apple just use Android" or vice versa and it's so predictable and boring. But this is exactly why this whole topic isn’t an issue. There currently _is_ choice, competition, and a viable alternative in the marketplace (unlike in the web browser space for example where chrome is eating everyone’s lunch). > and if the only way for them to reach us for…

> But this is exactly why this whole topic isn’t an issue. There currently _is_ choice, competition, and a viable alternative in the marketplace

I'll reference my other response because there's not much point in going any further unless we clear up this persistent misunderstanding about what the purpose of the DMA is.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43790939

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#618

Post by hilbert42 »

dcow wrote: post #520
Ifkaluva wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will the fines be large enough to matter? The headline number of 570M looks like pocket change.

It only costs 570MM a year to retain my iron grip monopoly on the AppStore? Let me find my checkbook…

Pocket-money fines won't stay that way and will be indexed if the EU is serious. That said, one has to doubt that the EU was ever serious given the fines have been so low from the outset.

Don't hold your breath waiting for fines to be increased.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#620

Post by dmitrygr »

makeitdouble wrote: post #481
dmitrygr wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And is it reasonable that the laws are created after the contract was already agreed to and still apply to it? At least here in the United States, laws are not allowed to make things illegal that happened before the laws were written.

Laws can definitively be retroactive or affect existing contracts. Imagine a world where governments have no power to stop anti-social behavior if it was ever baked into private contracts ? Also the DMA didn't fall from the sky one day and enforced the next. Every business impacted had years to do something about it, and they preferred to play chicken race instead.

> Imagine a world where governments have no power to stop anti-social behavior

They DO have the power to STOP it, they just cannot punish past behaviour which was legal at the time! At least in USA, this is directly in the constitution:

Article 1 § 9 prohibits Congress from passing any laws which apply ex post facto.

Article 1 § 10 prohibits the states from passing any laws which apply ex post facto.

SCOTUS also clarified this in Beazell v. Ohio:

"It is settled, by decisions of this Court so well known that their citation may be dispensed with, that any statute which punishes as a crime an act previously committed, which was innocent when done, which makes more burdensome the punishment for a crime, after its commission, or which deprives one charged with crime of any defense available according to law at the time when the act was committed, is prohibited as ex post facto."

Now, I know that this is EU and not USA, but my argument is that EU is the ones being unreasonable here. It is illogical to make something illegal and then punish those who had done it before it was made so.

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