Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

macrumors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

691–700 of 930 posts

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

#691

Post by themitigating »

cycomanic wrote: post #273
hyperpape wrote: post #175

There's several very good provisions in this legislation (3rd party payment processors, non-preferential treatment for 1st party apps), there are several that have a mix of upsides and downsides (sideloading is one--I personally like knowing that Facebook can't ask people to sideload some privacy destroying crap on iOS). Then there's: - Allow developers to integrate their apps and digital services directly with those…

Can we stop pretending that Apple has the users best interest in mind? They just want to be the gatekeeper for lucrative applications/functions so they can charge for it. That they somehow convinced apple users that it's somehow in their interest just shows how good their marketing is.

It's not binary, one company can be worse than another.

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

#692

Post by aljungberg »

car_analogy wrote: post #652
aljungberg wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can us common people get to decide what the common good is, or is that exclusively your choice? Censorship is something governments do, not private companies selling an optional product. If the greater good is a free for all app store, then let the greater populace decide that by choosing that product, not by outlawing the alternatives.

> Can us common people get to decide what the common good is, or is that exclusively your choice? This legislation is the result of democratic process - i.e. decided by the "common people", if indirectly. > let the greater populace decide that by choosing that product "The only legitimate power citizens have is that of consumers, not voters." - shall we also decide to only buy from companies that don't use child labo…

> This legislation is the result of democratic process - i.e. decided by the "common people", if indirectly.

Do you know that for a fact? The EU is famously opaque to its voters. What is being done in the name of the voters is likely for the most part entirely unknown to said voters. Very likely many more EU citizens have “voted” on this issue in a more direct fashion by buying Apple products. Should we disregard their opinion in favour of the opinion of a few bureaucrats four levels removed from the common people?

> shall we also decide to only buy from companies that don't use child labor, and don't put toxic chemicals in food, and don't pollute, or are those areas something where legislation is legitimate, while reigning in anti-competitive practices for some reason is not okay?

Ehr, yes? Shouldn’t we decide to avoid bad companies? Reminder that this subthread is about not infantilising people. I do believe people make such choices all the time, to avoid child labour and what not. What’s more democratic than a vast majority of people making such choices without coercion?

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

#693

Post by arepublicadoceu »

mullingitover wrote: post #688
the_duke wrote: post #244

This regulation is 5+ years overdue, but legislation always lags behind market conditions. If the US/other countries follow suit there will probably be a big unintended effect though: the diminishing of open web standards and Google getting final say about what will work on "the web" and what won't. With Firefox diminishing, Safari is the last bastion against a Chromium-only web. There are lots of Chromium forks, but…

I predict Chrome will come to iOS with working uBlock extension on day one, and that will be the last day I use Safari. I'm not even a fan of this regulation (I think it's sour grapes on the part of the EU because they have utterly failed to compete in this space) but I loathe the browser experience, with its lack of working ad blocking, on iOS.

> I predict Chrome will come to iOS with working uBlock extension on day one

> … I loathe the browser experience, with its lack of working ad blocking, on iOS.

Well, chrome is castrating ublock on chrome desktop with Manifest v3 quite soon. What makes you think it will be any different on iOS?

Pretty soon chrome Adblock capabilities will be quite similar to that of safari on iOS which I find quite ironic.

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

#694

Post by nl »

savingsPossible wrote: post #435
Retric wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple annual gross profit for 2021 was $152 billion. That ~19B in 2020 is before CC fees on 64B or internal expenses. App stores have a lot of customer service and charge backs on relatively tiny purchases. Actually reviewing apps isn’t cheap either, and all the relevant IT adds even more expense. Further they upped the developers cut to between 70% and 85% from the flat 70% in 2020. So sure they might make 3-5 billi…

at 5%, cc fees would result 2.9 billion. So more like 16B in profit

There is no way that Apple is paying 5% on credit card fees. Average fees paid by merchants are 1.3% to 3.5%[1].

You can bet Apple negotiates hard on that fee. It wouldn't surprise me to learn they are paying 0.1%.

[1] https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-credit-card...

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

#695

Post by car_analogy »

aljungberg wrote: post #692
car_analogy wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can us common people get to decide what the common good is, or is that exclusively your choice? This legislation is the result of democratic process - i.e. decided by the "common people", if indirectly. > let the greater populace decide that by choosing that product "The only legitimate power citizens have is that of consumers, not voters." - shall we also decide to only buy from companies that don't use child labo…

> This legislation is the result of democratic process - i.e. decided by the "common people", if indirectly. Do you know that for a fact? The EU is famously opaque to its voters. What is being done in the name of the voters is likely for the most part entirely unknown to said voters. Very likely many more EU citizens have “voted” on this issue in a more direct fashion by buying Apple products. Should we disregard the…

> Ehr, yes? Shouldn’t we decide to avoid bad companies?

What I clearly meant was if that should be the only defense we have against such companies. Or should we also have things like food and work safety regulations, and anti-child-labor laws.

> What’s more democratic than a vast majority of people making such choices without coercion?

Consumerism is the ultimate democracy, voting for laws and representatives is tyranny...

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

#696

Post by arepublicadoceu »

n8cpdx wrote: post #417
vivegi wrote: post #365

I love this just for these three rules: > Allow users to install apps from third-party app stores and sideload directly from the internet. > Allow developers to offer third-party payment systems in apps and promote offers outside the gatekeeper's platforms. > Ensure that all apps are uninstallable and give users the ability to unsubscribe from core platform services under similar conditions to subscription. and restr…

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, they choose iPhone because they want to be protected from them.

Hey, it’s me. A person that choose iPhone for a different set of things and absolutely don’t want to be “protected” from sideloading an open source YouTube alternative, or an open source emulator to play games from my childhood (I know, the horror).

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

#697

Post by ayntkilove »

samatman wrote: post #656
majewsky wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many people actually register that there are two buttons at the bottom? It's very obvious to power-users like us since we're used to [ Accept ] Cancel at this point, but I can only imagine the borderless design for the secondary button originating from a dark pattern.

The entire iOS operating system works that way now. I dislike it. I think buttons should be buttons. But this isn't a special case, so unless you consider every instance of two buttons looking this way a dark pattern, this one isn't either.

Personally I find it subconsciously mirrors how we interact with classic HTML.

A button posts, a link gets.

As a step in the device setup, the button infers some form of enablement or configuration while a link is perfect for skipping.

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

#698

Post by KerrAvon »

pavlov wrote: post #533
stjohnswarts wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's great! but why force apple to do it when it doesn't have a monopoly status in the phone market?

Because it will be a benefit to consumers? The EU has the authority to create new regulations, it’s not limited to antitrust.

It will not be a benefit to consumers. If I have a choice of an Android phone or an Android-like phone with an Apple logo on it, I don’t have a real choice.

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

#700

Post by syrrim »

mullingitover wrote: post #688
the_duke wrote: post #244

This regulation is 5+ years overdue, but legislation always lags behind market conditions. If the US/other countries follow suit there will probably be a big unintended effect though: the diminishing of open web standards and Google getting final say about what will work on "the web" and what won't. With Firefox diminishing, Safari is the last bastion against a Chromium-only web. There are lots of Chromium forks, but…

I predict Chrome will come to iOS with working uBlock extension on day one, and that will be the last day I use Safari. I'm not even a fan of this regulation (I think it's sour grapes on the part of the EU because they have utterly failed to compete in this space) but I loathe the browser experience, with its lack of working ad blocking, on iOS.

Chrome doesn't have extension support on android. While there are many popular chrome forks on android, none of the ones I'm familiar with add support for ublock, rather they have some inferior adblocking experience instead. Firefox on android does have extension support, which while limited, does support ublock0.
Post reply on HN