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The EU website has a handy list of what it's going to do, since the article doesn't really address this:

Examples of the “do’s”: gatekeepers will for example have to:
  • allow third parties to inter-operate with the gatekeeper’s own services in certain specific situations;
  • allow their business users to access the data that they generate in their use of the gatekeeper’s platform;
  • provide companies advertising on their platform with the tools and information necessary for advertisers and publishers to carry out their own independent verification of their advertisements hosted by the gatekeeper;
  • allow their business users to promote their offer and conclude contracts with their customers outside the gatekeeper’s platform.
Example of the “don'ts”: gatekeepers will for example no longer:
  • treat services and products offered by the gatekeeper itself more favourably in ranking than similar services or products offered by third parties on the gatekeeper's platform;
  • prevent consumers from linking up to businesses outside their platforms;
  • prevent users from un-installing any pre-installed software or app if they wish so;
  • track end users outside of the gatekeepers' core platform service for the purpose of targeted advertising, without effective consent having been granted.
 
What is the problem they are trying to solve?
Can that be stated before they tell us the fix?
The problem is simple. The EU Is running out of money and need to regulate it out of profitable companies. Since they’ve manage to strangle most of their large businesssee to death, they now are forced to look outside their own borders. Must feed the beast.

There is no immediate solution for the situation they created. Deregulation is the only answer and they’ll never do it.
 
You can be as upset as you want, but the facts are clear.






I think if I was subject to the EU, I'd be a little annoyed that they were concerned about a phone browser rather than taking steps to address the stagnant, rapidly falling behind economies of the member states.
Even the guys who invented GDP say it’s a terrible way of measuring the success of a country because it doesn’t take into account quality of life.

America might have higher GDP but when all that money is just filtered into the hands of billionaires instead of being spent on the infrastructure a functioning society needs such as nationalised healthcare what’s the point?
 
Pretty offensive comment right there.
You are being derogatory to people in Europe, which I'm not even from.

Also "You’d think maybe someone over there could figure out things aren’t working."

About as figured out as the USA is with its spending?

View attachment 2255745
You are correct. The US is on the same death spiral as the EU. We need to end the spending. It’s gotten so bad here that now college students feel that tax payers should repay their student loans.

To use a phrase that is so prevalent, this is unsustainable.
 
You can be as upset as you want, but the facts are clear.

I think if I was subject to the EU, I'd be a little annoyed that they were concerned about a phone browser rather than taking steps to address the stagnant, rapidly falling behind economies of the member states.
Agreed. The facts are: the GDP is not even remotely close to the spending in the USA. Hence the nearly 5 Trillion dollar increase in debt, in 1 year.

Money in vs Money out
 
You are correct. The US is on the same death spiral as the EU. We need to end the spending. It’s gotten so bad here that now college students feel that tax payers should repay their student loans.

To use a phrase that is so prevalent, this is unsustainable.
Thanks for acknowledging it. I don't want to get too off topic, but the USA does actually support a whole heap of countries worldwide - and that has a cost. It helps those countries, but it certainly doesn't seem to help the average American.. the crushing national debt
 
Socialism works on a low level. It’s why Europe has nationalised healthcare and social support structures and America has the highest levels of poverty in the western world.
Right. These systems may work on a small level. Think of the Kibbutz system in Israel. It worked because it was generally done in small groups. With full participation in decisions. In a larger system, people become more removed from the central government and things start to get fuzzier. US Congresspeople represent 700,000 people each. They're not going to know everybody.
 
The problem is:

  • App distribution on iOS/iPadOS locked to a single app store that Apple controls with no other way to get apps, which under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) marks them as a gatekeeper and they must rectify this by allowing alternatives to the Apple App Store on iOS, similarly to how they do on macOS
  • WebKit being the only web engine allowed on iOS. (Chrome and FireFox on iOS are just UI skins, as they're still forced to use WebKit which defeats the entire point of using Chrome or FireFox, as people want Chromium and FireFox Quantum, not WebKit) Remember when Microsoft got in trouble for pulling that stunt back in the 90s with United States of America vs Microsoft?
So the solution for both is simple: Just allow alternatives like they do on macOS. That's it. That's all they gotta do. A simple problem with a simple solution that Apple does not want to do as it means their app store monopoly is a *little* bit smaller.



It's not just the EU. Japan also approved similar measures and they will be forcing Apple to allow alternative app distribution as well, and in Japan Apple has a landslide dominance over any other competitor there of almost 70%. Like it's not even close. You gonna tell Apple to stop selling their products there too when they have overwhelming market dominance?



Why? This change benefits consumers as now iOS would have competition in app distribution, and competition breeds innovation. The only people this doesn't benefit...is Apple. Curious. 🤔



You can just choose not to sideload you know. Just like on Android, sideloading is completely optional and can be turned on and off with a toggle in settings. You can stay with the Apple App Store and never touch any alternatives should you so choose to.



Yes adding alternatives to app distribution and other web engines on iOS and other proconsumer measures is a "power grab by the elites." I guess forcing Apple to switch to USB-C on the iPhone, a move millions have begged for, was also a power grab? :rolleyes:
I agree, not sure what the big deal is. Apple will still have the App Store for people who don’t want to use these third party stores or anything. If people do, so be it, won’t affect my use of my iPhone.
 
I think if I was subject to the EU, I'd be a little annoyed that they were concerned about a phone browser rather than taking steps to address the stagnant, rapidly falling behind economies of the member states.
The Commission is less powerful than the US federal government.

They are not the same, fixing the economy would be the member states' duty...
 
Pretty offensive comment right there.
You are being derogatory to people in Europe, which I'm not even from.

Also "You’d think maybe someone over there could figure out things aren’t working."

About as figured out as the USA is with its spending?

View attachment 2255745

G.W. Bush tax cuts + G.W. Bush invasion of Afghanistan + G.W. Bush invasion of Iraq + Great Recession + Trump tax cuts = the vast majority of U.S. public debt from '00 to '22.
 
Right. These systems may work on a small level. Think of the Kibbutz system in Israel. It worked because it was generally done in small groups. With full participation in decisions. In a larger system, people become more removed from the central government and things start to get fuzzier. US Congresspeople represent 700,000 people each. They're not going to know everybody.
They don’t need to. The reason America has such crushing debt is because the republicans keep cutting taxes for their 1% backers but are still finding they need to spend a shedload of money in keeping the state functional.

The EU is actually a better system than the USA because each country is still its own separate jurisdiction of laws, taxes and so on. The EU is just a large area of some common laws (eg don’t destroy the environment) with freedom of movement of capital, trade and people across borders.

It’s not as federalised as the USA by a long shot.
 
The EU just keeps falling further behind. GDP per person is trending to 50% that of the US

When was the last time a tech company of any substance came from there?

Well there's Hello Fresh the food delivery service which is a German company

There's also one of the biggest video game publishers in the world Ubisoft, which is a French company

A lot of prominent mobile game developers like Supercell and King are from Finland and Sweden

Mojang is Swedish...you know...the people who made Minecraft the biggest video game in the world

You know ShaZam? The music recognition software that Apple bought almost a decade ago? Guess what, they're from the UK (though the UK left the EU so I guess that doesn't count lol)

Spotify is a Swedish company

Arm, the chip design firm responsible for the architecture used in Apple Silicon in our Macs and iPhones, as well as every ARM chip on the planet? Yeah, that's a UK company

So can we stop this myth that "oh Europe has no tech company that can compete against American tech companies" when the bulk of our software and services we use on a daily basis are from European companies?
 
The fines can amount to 10 percent of a company's global turnover, with a 20 percent penalty for repeat violations
Which Apple will likely pay regardless. Just like the Dutch dating game thing, they would rather just pay the fine than comply.

And yes, even with it’s 10 or 20% or company’s global turnover for fine, Apple can afford it because most of profit comes from hardware and they’ll keep making enough from the sale to just keep paying the fine and still make profit.
 
The problem is simple. The EU Is running out of money and need to regulate it out of profitable companies. Since they’ve manage to strangle most of their large businesssee to death, they now are forced to look outside their own borders. Must feed the beast.

There is no immediate solution for the situation they created. Deregulation is the only answer and they’ll never do it.

Antitrust laws are designed to regulate companies with dominant positions in particular markets. Companies with dominant positions (e.g., Apple with iOS and Google with Android) tend to be very profitable but it's the "dominance" combined with "anticompetitive behavior" (e.g., restricting alternative app stores or browser engines) that is the trigger, not the wealth.
 
They don’t need to. The reason America has such crushing debt is because the republicans keep cutting taxes for their 1% backers but are still finding they need to spend a shedload of money in keeping the state functional.

The EU is actually a better system than the USA because each country is still its own separate jurisdiction of laws, taxes and so on. The EU is just a large area of some common laws (eg don’t destroy the environment) with freedom of movement of capital, trade and people across borders.

It’s not as federalised as the USA by a long shot.
Well that's a separate issue altogether. And, of course, it's true. We seem to have an ethos in the US of a kind of envy of horrible people. Grubby. As an aging hippy, it's tiring.
 
i miss the days when there were real tech people on sites like MacRumors, who would bristle at the idea of being restricted from installing whatever they want on a device they paid for, and would rejoice at the ending of that kind of repression. Now it’s all viewed through some weird political lens (EU bad! Stifled innovation! Atlas Shrugged!) for some reason.
 
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