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> consider poor Twitter. Can they really afford this tax? If they can't afford a simple tax on their business in a region then they shouldn't be doing business

> consider poor Twitter. Can they really afford this tax? If they can't afford a simple tax on their business in a region then they shouldn't be doing business there or at all. What do you mean, "poor Twitter"? It's not a person. It doesn't have emotions or feelings. We don't need to treat it like a poor little snowflake and make sure it never melts. If Twitter can't handle being taxed then Twitter should die. That's capitalism. You don't get to reap the benefits of a region unsustainably and not aide in the development and growth of the region. Twitter in the EU without a tax is a parasite, not a business.

BurningFrog 9y ago
Being taxed to death is not "capitalism". Get a better dictionary!
Mononokay 9y ago
It can be argued that Twitter is less a for-profit corporation and more a public-benefit corporation at this point. Considering most EU officials communicate with denizens on it, and that it arguably costs them a far greater amount than what they'll be taxed for, it's hard to argue that they aren't already really paying tax in a roundabout way, donating computational resources to the EU to maintain stability of the Union at a cost to themselves.
- nl 9y ago
  Having public officials on their platform is a benefit to them (network effects), and the marginal cost is as close to zero as to immeasurably different.
  - Mononokay 9y ago
    It's a negative to them - loss in quality of discussions on platform, with viewers of these politicians generally using more bandwidth than the host will be able to make up with ad revenue.
    - nl 9y ago
      Good luck with that argument.
stale2002 9y ago
> If Twitter can't handle being taxed then Twitter should die. That's capitalism. Alternatively, the US could create retaliatory trade tariffs against these countries. Let the trade wars being. I wonder who will come out on top. Or even better, some of these tech companies could simply ban all users from these countries and point to the new tariff as to why. I wonder how much those voting citizens would like it if they lost access to the most popular social networks, ect for a couple days?

BurningFrog 9y ago

Being taxed to death is not "capitalism". Get a better dictionary!

Mononokay 9y ago

It can be argued that Twitter is less a for-profit corporation and more a public-benefit corporation at this point. Considering most EU officials communicate with denizens on it, and that it arguably costs them a far greater amount than what they'll be taxed for, it's hard to argue that they aren't already really paying tax in a roundabout way, donating computational resources to the EU to maintain stability of the Union at a cost to themselves.

nl 9y ago
Having public officials on their platform is a benefit to them (network effects), and the marginal cost is as close to zero as to immeasurably different.
- Mononokay 9y ago
  It's a negative to them - loss in quality of discussions on platform, with viewers of these politicians generally using more bandwidth than the host will be able to make up with ad revenue.
  - nl 9y ago
    Good luck with that argument.

stale2002 9y ago

> If Twitter can't handle being taxed then Twitter should die. That's capitalism. Alternatively, the US could create retaliatory trade tariffs against these countries. Let the trade wars being. I wonder who will come out on top. Or even better, some of these tech companies could simply ban all users from these countries and point to the new tariff as to why. I wonder how much those voting citizens would like it if they lost access to the most popular social networks, ect for a couple days?