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The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

politico.eu

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Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#731

Post by rambambram »

sincerely wrote: post #149
jjcm wrote: post #64

Here's the actual statement from the European Comission: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_... It's important to note they aren't creating laws against infinite scrolling , but are ruling against addictive design and pointing to infinite scrolling as an example of it. The wording here is fascinating, mainly because they're effectively acting as arbiters of "vibes". They point to certain feat…

>The wording here is fascinating, mainly because they're effectively acting as arbiters of "vibes" This is not such an unusual thing in law, as much as us stem-brained people want legal systems to work like code. The most famous example is determining art vs pornography - "I know it when I see it" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it )

This exactly. The post you reply to implies they have discovered something very novel, which they did not. I don't remember which ancient king it was, but they already tried thousands of years ago to make codes of law with every situation described in it. They failed. Just leave the final interpretation to the judge, and let the politicians make broad laws (in good faith, I hope).

> as much as us stem-brained people want legal systems to work like code

I see this a lot on HN, and it makes sense to think like this if you're a programmer. It's also a sign these programmers should open up their world view a bit more.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#732

Post by layer8 »

terminalshort wrote: post #502
layer8 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be worth a try to outlaw compensation for advertising. The spirit of free speech is usually that you aren’t being paid for it.

The spirit of free speech is that I can say whatever I damn well please for any purpose that suits me including that someone paid me to.

I would dispute that.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#733

Post by permo-w »

_qib3 wrote: post #675
roysting wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will just see the shift of the methods used in government corruption to circumvent such rules, e.g., your wife gets a wildly lucrative “book deal” right after you do something, and then when time has passed, you also get a “book deal” or are hired to speak at exorbitant fees or get hired in some BS position or are made a member of a board, or your children are hired as executives or even made board members. The p…

Well, yeah. There are always ways to get around laws. But this is like saying taxes are a bad idea because tax evasion exists.

It's the eternal hacker news debate:

"let's regulate x"

"but surely we can't regulate x because defining x is complicated"

"plenty of things are complex and are regulated, also here is a definition that covers almost all cases and the rest can be left to judicial nous"

"but people will just evade the law anyway"

Honestly pick a post about the EU at random and you'll be able to find some variety of this chain of conversation. It's so general an argument that it could be made about literally any law that's ever existed, making it entirely null if you believe in any regulation whatsoever

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#734

Post by snowpid »

tcfhgj wrote: post #645
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What could possible go wrong with the government funding media? It’s not like they would take away funding for media that they don’t agree with.

Works quite well in germany

no it does not.

We can argue about public media but Germany is a really bad example.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#735

Post by gunapologist99 »

Saline9515 wrote: post #631
mcny wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to have a cookie popup if you don't do stupid stuff. Don't use anything other than strictly necessary cookies and you are good to go. Disclaimer: I anal and this is not legal advice.

It is just bad UI. It could have been better implemented, such as with a browser-side opt out setting, for instance. Similar to what we have for permissions, for instance.

Why do governments think they are experts in user interfaces or UX?

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#736

Post by simongray »

Saline9515 wrote: post #628
simongray wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And what's the actual result? Just look at the market capitalization of European companies compared to US companies.. Europe is actually doing quite well at the moment. The European stock markets have over-performed quite decently vs. the US ever since Trump became president, despite the various curveballs thrown at Europe in recent years. Market capitalisation in the US is held up primarily by the Magnificent 7 wh…

There is a recency bias here. The Sp500 has outperformed the Stoxx600 every year for the last 5 years, except 2022. Cumulative returns are around 100% for the american index, vs 60% for the EU one.

Maybe the momentum of Stoxx600 will last the next 4 years? Or maybe the S&P500 will come crashing down soon? Who knows.

The Shiller PE ratio is insanely high. At least the European market isn't completely overinvested in just 7 companies who are spending a lot of their money on the exact same thing, so it has that going for it.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#737

Post by permo-w »

shaky-carrousel wrote: post #659
Barbing wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would YouTube look like? (Genuinely happy to read “like the good old days” as an answer!)

It would be way smaller and with real content, instead of crappy slop (AI or otherwise).

It would be dead. Google would shut it down or sell it, but who is going to buy billions of dollars a year in costs for no advertising revenue in return? Youtube's hosting costs would put a massive dent in even some hypothetical really nice billionaire's wallet. Apple could afford it and they'd run it a million times better, but would they even consider putting so much loss on their books for the sake of ... PR?

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#738

Post by gunapologist99 »

dathinab wrote: post #80
peterisza wrote: post #2

They should move to kill the cookie popup

ahhhh, every time the same discussion 1. GDPR consent dialogs are not cookie popups, most things you see are GDPR consent dialogs 2. GDPR consent dialogs are only required if you share data, i.e. spy on the user 3. GDPR had from the get to go a bunch of exceptions, e.g. you don't need permission to store a same site cookie indicating that you opted out of tracking _iff_ you don't use it for tracking. Same for a lot o…

"Share data" !=== "spy on the user"

Oauth, for example.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#739

Post by [deleted] »

mqus wrote: post #623
NeutralCrane wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying someone for promoting your product or message. I don’t think it’s all that complicated. Talking about your own product on the internet is fine. Paying to promote your message wouldn’t be. TikTok and Reddit and Instagram aren’t trying to keep people endlessly scrolling because they are free-speech fanatics. It entirely comes down to “more time in app = more revenue”. Take away that monetization method and you t…

But what if I rent a space on your website that I can fill however I want? And then, coincidentally, I praise my products on that rented space. How is that different from... other hosting offers?

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