There's nothing special about US software engineering vs. software engineering made elsewhere from a purely technical and know-how point of view.
The key difference is availability of capital and appetite for risk that make US exceptional by enabling a speed of scaling and execution not possible anywhere else (well, other than China).
If US companies that can't be bothered to follow EU laws leave the +500M people market that is the EU, I'm positive some other equally competent alternative (local or otherwise) would appear sooner or later to fill in the gap.
Perhaps the same regulations that US companies keep running afoul of are the regulations that prevent European investors from putting money behind European startup competitors.
The EU has some extremely strong consumer protection laws, which is excellent for consumers, but it comes with downsides too.
> Perhaps the same regulations that US companies keep running afoul of are the regulations that prevent European investors from putting money behind European startup competitors.
Nah, it's all the capital which gets invested into the US caused by the dollar's role in international payments that drives the US exceptionalism is tech.
Like, 65% of world equity value relates to 4% of the world population. That's not sustainable long-term, and if something cannot go on forever, then one day it will stop (and we might be seeing that start to happen now).
Don't get me wrong, the US market has a bunch of advantages (large, one language, standard regulation) but it's mostly all the capital sloshing around that drives the outperformance of the US tech companies.
> If you want to sideload, just get an Android device. There is no monopoly here.
The Digital Markets Act is not about a user's right to sideload. It's about 100s of thousands of businesses' right to reach billions of users without Apple in the middle. That's why it's called the Digital Markets Act, not the Phone User Rights Act
This word doesn't simply mean 'I don't like this', you know.
Facebook is under no obligation to operate in Europe. Of course, they make about 40 billion revenue in Europe annually, so they will be inclined to want to stay in Europe. And they can do this! They just have to follow the rules.
I'll be generous and assume you're being disingenuous by accident: This isn't about the ads, it's about the tracking. Meta is free to put ads wherever it wants, but it's not free to track people who don't want to be tracked.
In the end, a population has the right to govern itself how it wants. There's absolutely NOTHING wrong with that - Meta is free to simply not operate in the EU.
Why shouldn't you allowed to track people across your own services if users consent? If they don't consent, they are free to simply not use your services. Problem solved.
There is no actual need for this law. No rights are being infringed on. Just don't use the website.
Because that's how we like it, and that's the end of it. The people of the EU have said that these are the rules for doing business there, and saying "I should be able to murder people in my own house, if you don't want to be murdered, just don't come here, there's no need for anti-murdering laws" is rather irrelevant.
This logic works just the same applied to Meta, without the requiring the expectation that Meta should be able to operate without following the law.
Why shouldn't Meta be forbidden to track people? It's the law. If they don't want to follow the applicable law in the jurisdiction they operate in they can cease their operations there.
Blaming Europe for "rent-seeking" when enforcing basic consumer protections rules on those massive foreign-propaganda disinformation and wealth extraction engines really takes the cake. Fuck Meta, if it was up to me Facebook, Instagram and X would have been long gone from European soil. We gain nothing from them.
US companies are free to not operate in Europe.
There's nothing special about US software engineering vs. software engineering made elsewhere from a purely technical and know-how point of view.
The key difference is availability of capital and appetite for risk that make US exceptional by enabling a speed of scaling and execution not possible anywhere else (well, other than China).
If US companies that can't be bothered to follow EU laws leave the +500M people market that is the EU, I'm positive some other equally competent alternative (local or otherwise) would appear sooner or later to fill in the gap.
Perhaps the same regulations that US companies keep running afoul of are the regulations that prevent European investors from putting money behind European startup competitors.
The EU has some extremely strong consumer protection laws, which is excellent for consumers, but it comes with downsides too.
> Perhaps the same regulations that US companies keep running afoul of are the regulations that prevent European investors from putting money behind European startup competitors.
Nah, it's all the capital which gets invested into the US caused by the dollar's role in international payments that drives the US exceptionalism is tech.
Like, 65% of world equity value relates to 4% of the world population. That's not sustainable long-term, and if something cannot go on forever, then one day it will stop (and we might be seeing that start to happen now).
Don't get me wrong, the US market has a bunch of advantages (large, one language, standard regulation) but it's mostly all the capital sloshing around that drives the outperformance of the US tech companies.
2 replies →
> If you want to sideload, just get an Android device. There is no monopoly here.
The Digital Markets Act is not about a user's right to sideload. It's about 100s of thousands of businesses' right to reach billions of users without Apple in the middle. That's why it's called the Digital Markets Act, not the Phone User Rights Act
They could equally make the whole thing subscription-only, but they're not going to do that.
> gerrymandered
This word doesn't simply mean 'I don't like this', you know.
Facebook is under no obligation to operate in Europe. Of course, they make about 40 billion revenue in Europe annually, so they will be inclined to want to stay in Europe. And they can do this! They just have to follow the rules.
I'll be generous and assume you're being disingenuous by accident: This isn't about the ads, it's about the tracking. Meta is free to put ads wherever it wants, but it's not free to track people who don't want to be tracked.
In the end, a population has the right to govern itself how it wants. There's absolutely NOTHING wrong with that - Meta is free to simply not operate in the EU.
Why shouldn't you allowed to track people across your own services if users consent? If they don't consent, they are free to simply not use your services. Problem solved.
There is no actual need for this law. No rights are being infringed on. Just don't use the website.
Because that's how we like it, and that's the end of it. The people of the EU have said that these are the rules for doing business there, and saying "I should be able to murder people in my own house, if you don't want to be murdered, just don't come here, there's no need for anti-murdering laws" is rather irrelevant.
5 replies →
Why doesnt this same logic apply to meta? They don't have to comply with this law if they don't want to, its their choice to operate in the EU
> across your own services
What are Facebook's own services? Or Google's for that matter.
Neither tracks you just when you're on facebook.com or google.com. They track you everywhere.
> Just don't use the website.
https://www.newsweek.com/heres-how-turn-off-tracking-faceboo... https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-stop-facebook-from-spyin... https://www.wired.com/story/ways-facebook-tracks-you-limit-i...
This logic works just the same applied to Meta, without the requiring the expectation that Meta should be able to operate without following the law.
Why shouldn't Meta be forbidden to track people? It's the law. If they don't want to follow the applicable law in the jurisdiction they operate in they can cease their operations there.
Blaming Europe for "rent-seeking" when enforcing basic consumer protections rules on those massive foreign-propaganda disinformation and wealth extraction engines really takes the cake. Fuck Meta, if it was up to me Facebook, Instagram and X would have been long gone from European soil. We gain nothing from them.