tmay

cropr said:

rob53 said:

As I've said many times before, people have plenty of choices on what products they want to buy. If you don't like Apple's way of doing things go with an Android platform or demand a company in the EU to build a new platform. Just because Apple's platform is the one many people want to use doesn't mean the EU has any right to tell Apple what to do. If you don't like what Apple is doing, find another platform. It's just like wine. If you don't want to pay for wine made in the EU, then grow your own, which the USA has done. 

As I've said many times before, the current issue is not about users having choice, it is about  the ant-competitive laws that are applicable in the EU.  These laws are one of the cornerstones of EU, going back to the founding of the EU.   The anti-competitve laws are mainly there to protect smaller companies from the power abuse of larger companies.

And the ant-steering rule that Apple was imposing in its App Store guidelines to tthe app developers, is without discussion (even Apple acknowledges it now) a schoolbook example of anti-competitive behaviour.

It remains a big question mark whether the 27% cut rule Apple is using now iso. the anti-steering rule, will not be considered as anti-competitive.

In case you wonder, the EU anti-competitive laws are applied evenly strictly to large EU companies.  AB Inbev, the Belgian brewer who owns Budweiser, got also a huge fine for anti-competitive behaviour.   If Apple want to do business in the EU, it must comply to these EU laws.

avon b7 said:

tmay said:

avon b7 said:

beowulfschmidt said:

AppleInsider said:

Apple at the time objected, saying that the EU had failed "to uncover any credible evidence of consumer harm."

Why would they bother to provide such evidence? The law isn't about preventing "consumer harm", because there isn't any.  It's about bringing Apple to heel, and making them answer to their rightful masters.

There is definitely consumer harm: Anti-steering.

Also, never allowing competition to exist in certain areas. Alternative app stores, NFC, being the sole voice on what is and isn't acceptable... 

The 'no credible evidence' is simply Apple's opinion. A PR blurb to say something that actually means little. 

Obviously the EU thought differently and the anti-steering related fine, AFAIK, wasn't DMA/DSA related.

It was also open to appeal so I'm surprised that Apple is now rumoured to have just swallowed the decision. 

As for their being nothing in the DMA against Apple imposing a 27% commission on transactions outside its realm, I'd argue that there doesn't need to be, as the whole point was to stimulate competition and Apple taking a cut from everywhere there is app related business going on flies directly in the face of that so I doubt it will pass the sniff test again. 

I understand that the EU wants to "stimulate competition" through regulation, but the truth of the matter is that the EU has set itself up to fail in technological innovation. outside of some industrial niches. Regulation isn't now, and won't ever, increase the EU market, and it is ultimately just an attempt to shift the revenues to some homegrown companies, a zero sum solution.

Perhaps it's a a culture of risk aversion, and likely as much, the high taxation that discourages investment, or even the inability to scale across various languages and borders. Whatever the cause, the EU is uncompetitive in the technology sector.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcKzantanX0

None of that has anything to do with Apple and consumer harm. 

Apple is far from dominating streaming as the EU says it is, and the company has to have concluded that it simply isn't being heard. Or perhaps that Europe-based firm Spotify is being heard more, since Apple has made a point of noting how Spotify has met with EU regulators 65 times.

slow n easy said:

There is a massive night and day difference between FSD from 2018 and now. He is proving everyone wrong. All the experts and every major company said that it was impossible for his approach to work, and yet the cars drive by themselves with only minor mistakes here and there. The car still doesn’t understand hand signals yet. I just got back from a 3 ½ hour trip to Indianapolis today and there was a traffic cop waving cars through a red light. That is still one of the situations that the car can’t handle yet. But for the vast majority of situations, the car does fine. I still feel that this will be a finished product by the end of 2026 and most car manufacturers will get Tesla licenses for Honda to use FSD for example and Ford to license FSD, and so on. Tesla is just too far ahead for others to catch up. 

Of the 14 systems rated, 11 were found to be "poor," including Tesla's Autopilot and its Full Self-Driving version, which is in beta testing, along with Nissan's ProPILOT Assist 2.0, Mercedes-Benz's Active Distance Assist DISTRONIC with Active Steering Assist, Ford's BlueCruise and BMW's Active Driving Assistant.

SAE Level 5

Full Self-Driving (FSD) is Tesla's branding for its beta testing program to achieve fully autonomous driving (SAE Level 5). The naming is controversial, because vehicles operating under FSD remain at Level 2 automation and are therefore not "fully self-driving" and require active driver supervision.

rob53 said:

phillyfanatic09 said:

Market share is not the whole story; to show an illegal monopoly, the DOJ will have to prove that Apple maintains that market share by coercion, market manipulation or price manipulation. If US consumers simply prefer iPhones by a 2 to 1 margin, that’s not illegal. The case, as filed, faces some real challenges.

This happens in every market and rarely anything happens. Ford sells more trucks than any other company. Has the DOJ looked into any market manipulation by Ford? What about all their, and GM’s, manipulation of the truth? Even Microsoft just got off with a hand slap while they continue to coerce and manipulate the PC market. The US government is the largest user of Microsoft products, forcing everyone to use their server products with expensive client licenses yet nothing from the DOJ. 

avon b7 said:

canukstorm said:

avon b7 said:

canukstorm said:

avon b7 said:

blastdoor said:

avon b7 said:

igorsky said:

avon b7 said:

That 85% don't pay anything is utterly irrelevant. The point is that the remaining share is enough to generate billions upon billions in revenues because there is literally no competition allowed. Everything in that other group goes to Apple because alternative stores are not allowed to exist.

The same applies to the 'reduced' 15%' which only ever came into effect through regulatory scrutiny and complaints. Without that Apple wouldn't have conceded anything.

What are are you saying exactly…that Apple shouldn’t charge anything? That’s not how intellectual property works. 

Apple can charge whatever it wants. Why not 70%? That isn't the issue. 

The issue is that only Apple gets to charge because it doesn't allow other stores to exist. 

So Apple has a monopoly of the Apple market, eh? Kind of like how the movie theater doesn't allow outside food or drink? Or how if you go to your dentist, you can't choose a hygienist from another dentist? 

That approach to defining the market is absurd and if that's the basis for the DOJ's case (and it very well might be), then a victory by the DOJ would mean economic chaos. Consumers like bundles of goods and services. They don't want everything unbundled. To force that unbundling would harm consumers because it would impose on them the cost of creating those bundles themselves and doing all the integration themselves. 

Apple's practices are only potentially problematic if they are a monopoly. The revenue share argument strikes me as pretty weak. Apple is not stopping any other firm from offering a bundle of goods and services as attractive as theirs. Many other firms have the money and IP portfolios to pull it off. The thing holding them back isn't Apple, it's that their leadership is fundamentally corrupt and uninterested in creating a company like Apple, instead they are only interested in getting rich quick and moving on. That's not Apple's fault. 

It's all a question of perspective. These are new times for digital services and hardware. It should all be put into the system, scrutinised and dealt with. The Google search default on iPhones is also being scrutinised. Different places could well see things differently. 

This is the beginning. The EU has a lead here and we already know (or have a very good idea) what is expected. 

As for food and drink in movie theaters, they try that here (signs and all) but it is actually illegal to stop someone taking their own food and drink into a movie theater if the theater offers its own options. The reason being that food and drink isn't the main business of movie theaters. 

Again, different places see things in different ways. 

We'll have to wait and see how the DoJ plays it and how Apple responds. 

"The EU has a lead here and we already know (or have a very good idea) what is expected. "

The EU is not leading on anything.  This is nothing but the EU trying to regulate their way out of becoming economically irrelevant because they, and their companies, don't have what it takes to compete on an even playing field.  If you can't compete, regulate.  That's the EU's motto right now.   As far as the DOJ's case goes, it is wrong on the facts and the law.  It should have never brought.  If I were Apple's lawyers, I wouldn't pay the EU a penny of whatever fines they're thinking of levying, and I would go to town on the DOJ.

The EU has led the way on pretty much all the major legislative efforts related to 'digital'. 

WEEE, RoHS, GDPR, right to be forgotten, consumer protection, common chargers, Big Tech, Cyber Security... 

An AI directive is advancing well. 

If you read the just the preamble to most of those directives you will see why they are needed. That is basically accepted by all parties. That is why they got approved. 

They are also models for other parts of the world. 

The EU competes very well and the last time I checked there were a lot more US-EU strategic dependencies than EU-US strategic dependencies. 

Much is being said about the US Chips Act but long before that became something to talk about the EU was implementing its own chip road map. 

The EU rolled out widespread EMV payment support about a decade before the US. 

Interoperability within the banking and ICT sectors was dealt with long ago. 

'Common' policies were introduced to resolve big problems and have succeeded in many areas. 

No, the EU does not compete very well.  It's an economically decaying and cratering system.  The only way it can compete is by legislating itself to death.  A true mark of an irrelevant system.

Ironic that you say it's legislating itself to death when absolutely all the directives I mentioned act to harmonise actions across the union and literally level the playing field for everyone. 

Of the ones I mentioned, where are you seeing problems? Apart from Big Tech of course.